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FINDISG  THE  MANTSCRIPT  DIART  OF  JOHS  EVELTN. 


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;OOHS    ANO    .^UTHORS. 


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BOOKS  AND  AUTHOES : 


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PHILADELPHIA: 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  AND  CO. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Advantages  of  Good  Print,  the 158 

Ale,  Bishop  Still's  Praise  of 83 

A  Learned  Young  Lady 149 

Alfleri's  Hair 153 

Authors,  Hard  Fate  of 59 

Authorship,  Pains  and  Toils  of 125 

Bad's  the  Best — Canning's  Criticism     ....  60 

"  Beggar's  Opera,"  Origin  of  the 140 

Bell,  Death  of  Sir  Charles 46 

Blue-Stocking  Club,  the 10 

Boar's  Head  Tavern,  East  Cheap,  Eelics  of          .        .  115 

Boileau's,  A  Carouse  at 147 

Bolingbroke  at  Battersea 112 

Bolingbroke,  his  Creed, 55 

Booksellers  in  Little  Britain 27 

Boswell  as  the  "  Bear-leader" 118 

Boswell's  "Life  of  Johnson" 99 

"Boz"  (Dickens),  Origin  of  the  Word         ...  99 

Bottled  Ale,  Accidental  Origin  of         ....  49 

Bulwer's  Pompeian  Drawing-room       ....  84 

Bunyan's  Copy  of  the  "Book  of  Martyrs"    ...  53 

Bunyan's  Escapes 57 

Bunyan's  Preaching 66 

Burney,  Miss,  her  "  Evelina" 66 

Butler  and  Buckingham 143 

Byron,  Lord,  his  Graceful  Apology       ....  39 

Byron's  "Corsair"                 26 

A 


2  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Byron  and  "  My  Grandmother's  Eeview  "    .        .        ,95 

Byron's  Personal  Vanity 37 

Canning,  A  Ludicrous  Estimate  of        ....  50 

Chalmers'  (Dr.)  Industry 103 

Chalmers'  Preaching  in  London 44 

Chances  for  the  Drama 68 

Chatterton's  Profit  and  Loss  Beckoning        .        .        .  136 

Classical  Pun,  A 47 

"  Clean  Hands,"  Lord  Brougham's        ....  79 

Clever  Statesmen,  Swift  on 116 

Cobbett's  Boyhood 121 

Coleridge  in  the  Dragoons 120 

Coleridge  as  a  Unitarian  Preacher        ....  123 

Coleridge's  "Watchman" 32 

Collins'  Insanity 129 

Collins'  Poor  Opinion  of  his  Poems 13 

Colton  the  Author  of  "Lacon" 62 

Conscience,  A  Composition  with 133 

Copyrights,  Value  of  some 65 

Cowley  at  Chertsey 108 

Cowper's  "John  Gilpin" 68 

Cowper's  Poems,  First  Publication  of  .        .        .        .21 

Criticism,  Sensitiveness  to 142 

Curran's  Imagination 107 

Dangerous  Fools 84 

Day  and  his  Model  Wife 109 

Death-bed  Kevelations 49 

Dennis,  Conceited  Alarms  of         .....  132 

Devotion  to  Science 74 

Disadvantageous  Correction,  Lord  North's  ...  75 

Drollery  must  be  Spontaneous 58 

Dryden  Drubbed 151 

"  Edinburgh  Keview,"  Origin  of  the     ....  116 

Evelyn's  Diary  Discovered  at  Wotton          ...  7 

"  Feion  Literature " 48 

Fielding's  «  Tom  Jones" 78 


CONTENTS.  3 

PAGE 

Fine  Flourishes,  Brougham's  lleLuke  of       .        .        .39 

Flattery,  Moderate 80 

Fontenelle's  Insensibility 124 

Foote's  Wooden  Leg 88 

Fox  and  Gibbon 25 

French-English  Jeu-de-mot 81 

Fuller's  Memory 69 

Gibbon's  House  at  Lausanne 98 

Goldsmith  and  the  Amanuensis, 159 

Goldsmith's  "  She  Stoops  to  Conquer"         ...  43 

Haydn  and  the  Ship  Captain 138 

Haydn's  Diploma  Piece  at  Oxford         ....  139 

Hearne's  Love  of  Ale .  22 

Hervey,  Lord,  his  wit 69 

Hone's  "E very-day  Book" 66 

Hoole,  the  Translator  of  Tasso 36 

Hope's  "  Anastasius " 61 

Ireland's  Shakspearian  Forgeries          ....  33 

Jerrold's  Jokes,  A  String  of 130 

Jerrold's  Eebuke  to  a  Eude  Intruder     ....  155 

Joe  Miller  at  Court        .      ■ 128 

Johnson  and  Hannah  More 11 

Johnson  behind  the  Screen 158 

Johnson's  Criticisms 97 

Johnson's  Latest  Contemporaries          ....  105 

Johnson's  Pretty  Compliment  to  Mrs.  Siddons     .        .  109 

Johnson's  Pride 26 

Johnson's  Residences  and  Resorts  in  London       .        .  77 

Johnson's  Wigs 76 

Johnson  and  Lord  Elibank 118 

Johnson,  Relics  of,  at  Lichfield 119 

"Junius,"  Rogers  and    .        • 152 

"  Junius'  Letters,"  Who  Wrote  ? 89 

Killing  no  Murder 141 

Lamb,  Gary's  Epitaph  on 67 

Learning  French,  Brummell         .....  102 


4  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Leigh  Hunt  and  Thomas  Carlyle         ....  19 

Lewis's  "Mouli" 42 

Literary  Coffee-houses  in  last  Century         ...  93 

Literary  Dinners 17 

Literary  Localities  in  London 55 

Literary  Men,  the  Families  of 9 

Locke's  Kebuke  to  the  Card-Playing  Lords           .        .  137 

Lope  de  Vega's  Popularity 29 

Lope  de  Vega's  Voluminous  Writings           ...  28 

Lovelace,  The  Last  Days  of .        .         .        .        .        .  134 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  and  Dr.  Parr   ....  28 

Mackintosh's  Humour    .        • 28 

Magazine,  the  First 117 

Magazines,  the  Sale  of 72 

Magna  Charta  recovered 25 

Mathematical  Sailors 41 

Mermaid  Club,  The 144 

Milton,  Kelics  of 113 

Mitford,  Miss,  her  Farewell  to  Three-Mile  Cross        .  12 

Moore's  Anacreontic  Invitation 70 

Moore's  Epigram  on  Abbott 130 

Morris,  Captain,  his  Songs 14 

Negroes  at  Home 130 

O'Connell's  Opinion  of  the  Authorship  of  "  Junius "    •  92 

Patronage  of  Authors 100 

Patronage  of  Literature  in  France        ....  75 

Payment  in  Kind 135 

Physiognomy  of  the  French  Kevolutionists  ...  45 

Poets  in  a  Puzzle 71 

Poetry  of  the  Sea,  Campbell  on  the       ....  47 

Pope,  A  Hard  Hit  at 150 

Pope's  Opinion  of  Spenser 156 

Popularity  of  the  Pickwick  Papers       ....  18 

Porson's  Memory 146 

Quid  pro  Quo,  Turner's 51 

Eeconciling  the  Fathers 27 


CONTENTS.  5 

PAGE 

Eegality  of  Genius        .......  77 

Eepartee,  A  Smart 52 

Eival  Eemembrance — Gifford  and  HazHtt    ...  88 

Eomilly  and  Brougham 45 

Sale,  tlie  Translator  of  the  Koran         ....  133 

Shenstone,  An  Odd  Present  to 160 

Sheridan  in  his  Decay 159 

Sheridans,  The  Two 141 

Sheridan's  Careful  Study  of  his  Wit     ....  23 

Silence  no  sure  Sign  of  Wisdom 44 

Smith,  James,  one  of  the  Authors  of  the  "Eejected 

Addresses" 60,  80 

Smith,  Sydney,  on  Scotland 156 

Smollett's  Hard  Fortunes 154 

Smollett's  History  of  England 24 

Smollett's  "  Hugh  Strap" 13 

Snail  Dinner,  the 106 

Southey's  Wife 73 

Stammering  Witticism,  Lamb's 49 

Sterne's  Sermons 85 

Swift's  Disappointed  Life 18 

Swift's  Three  Loves 31 

Thomson's  Indolence 148 

Thomson's  Eecitation  of  his  Poetry      ....  42 

"Times"  Newspaper,  Writing  up  the           .        .        .  114 

"Tom  Cringle's  Log,"  Authorship  of   ....  68 

Tom  Hill 85 

Trimmer,  Mrs 117 

Tycho  Brahe's  Nose 87 

Voltairean  Eelics  at  Ferney,  Sale  of     .        .        .        .79 

Waller,  the  Courtier-Poet 160 

Walton,  Izaak,  Eelics  of        . 82 

Washington  Irving  and  Wilkie  at  the  Alhambra         .  Ill 

"  Waverley,"  the  Authorship  of 61 

Way  to  Win  them,  Walpole's 96 

Wycherley's  Wooing 146 


NOTE. 

This  collection  of  anecdotes,  illustrative  sketches,  and 
memorabilia  generally,  relating  to  the  ever  fresh  and 
interesting  subject  of  Books  and  Authors,  is  not 
presented  as  complete,  nor  even  as  containing  all  the 
choice  material  of  its  kind.  The  field  from  which  one 
may  gather  is  so  wide  and  fertile,  that  any  collection 
warranting  such  a  claim  would  far  exceed  the  compass 
of  many  volumes,  much  less  of  this  little  book.  It 
has  been  sought  to  offer,  in  an  acceptable  and  con- 
venient form,  some  of  the  more  remarkable  or  in- 
teresting literary  facts  or  incidents  with  which  one 
individual,  in  a  somewhat  extended  reading,  has  been 
struck ;  some  of  the  passages  which  he  has  admired ; 
some  of  the  anecdotes  and  jests  that  have  amused  him 
and  may  amuse  others ;  some  of  the  reminiscences 
that  it  has  most  pleased  him  to  dwell  upon.  For  no 
very  great  portion  of  the  contents  of  this  volume,  is 
the  claim  to  originality  of  subject-matter  advanced. 
The  collection,  however,  is  submitted  with  some  con- 
fidence that  it  may  be  found  as  interesting,  as  ac- 
curate, and  as  much  guided  by  good  taste,  as  it  ha? 
been  endeavoured  to  make  it. 


BOOKS   AND   AUTHORS. 

CURIOUS  FACTS  AND  CHARACTERISTIC 
SKETCHES. 


THE    FINDING    OF   JOHN    EVELYN  S    MS.  DIARY 
AT  WOTTON.* 

The  MS.  Diary,  or  "  Kalendarium,"  of  the  celebrated 
John  Evelyn  lay  among  the  family  papers  at  Wotton, 
in  Surrey,  from  the  period  of  his  death,  in  1706,  until 
their  rare  interest  and  value  were  discovered  in  the 
following  singular  manner. 

The  library  at  "Wotton  is  rich  in  curious  books,  with 
notes  in  John  Evelyn's  handwriting,  as  well  as  papers 
on  various  subjects,  and  transcripts  of  letters  by  the 
philosopher,  who  appears  never  to  have  employed  an 
amanuensis.  The  arrangement  of  these  treasures  was, 
many  years  since,  entrusted  to  the  late  Mr.  Upcott, 
of  the  London  Institution,  who  made  a  complete  cata- 
logue of  the  collection. 

One  afternoon,  as  Lady  Evelyn  and  a  female  com- 

*  See  the  Frontispiece. 


8  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

panion  were  seated  in  one  of  the  fine  old  apartments  of 
Wotton,  making  feather  tippets,  her  ladyship  pleasantly 
observed  to  Mr.  Upcott,  "  You  may  think  this  feather- 
work  a  strange  way  of  passing  time  :  it  is,  however, 
my  hobby  ;  and  I  dare  say  you,  too,  Mr.  Upcott,  have 
your  hobby."  The  librarian  replied  that  his  favourite 
pursuit  was  the  collection  of  the  autographs  of  eminent 
persons.  Lady  Evelyn  remarked,  that  in  all  proba- 
bility the  MSS.  of  ''Sylva"  Evelyn  would  afford 
Mr.  Upcott  some  amusement.  His  reply  may  be 
well  imagined.  The  bell  was  rung,  and  a  servant 
desired  to  bring  the  papers  from  a  lumber-room  of 
the  old  mansion  ;  and  from  one  of  the  baskets  so  pro- 
duced was  brought  to  light  the  manuscript  Diary  of 
John  Evelyn. — one  of  the  most  finished  specimens 
of  autobiography  in  the  whole  compass  of  English 
literature. 

The  publication  of  the  Diary,  with  a  selection  of 
familiar  letters,  and  private  correspondence,  was  en- 
trusted to  Mr.  William  Bray,  F.S.A. ;  and  the  last 
sheets  of  the  MS.,  with  a  dedication  to  Lady  Evelyn, 
were  actually  in  the  hands  of  the  printer  at  the  hour 
of  her  death.  The  work  appeared  in  1818  ;  and  a 
volume  of  Miscellaneous  Papers,  by  Evelyn,  was  sub- 
sequently published,  under  Mr.  Upcott's  editorial 
superintendence. 

Wotton  House,  though  situate  in  the  angle  of  two 
valleys,  is  actually  on  part  of  Leith  Hill,  the  rise  from 
thence  being  very  gradual.  Evelyn's  "Diary"  con- 
tains a  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  the  mansion  as  it  appeared 
in  1653. 


FAMILIES  OF  LITERARY  MEN.  9 

"FAMILIES   OF  LITERAEY  MEN. 
A  Quarterly  Reviewer,  in  discussing  an  objection  to 
the  Copyright  Bill  of  Mr.  Sergeant  Talfourd,  which 
was  taken  by  Sir  Edward  Sugden,  gives  some  curious 
particulars  of  the  progeny  of  literary  men.     "  We  are 
not,"  saj'S  the  writer,  "  going  to  speculate  about  the 
causes  of  the  fact ;   but  a  fact  it  is,  that  men  dis- 
tinguished   for    extraordinary    intellectual    power    of 
any  sort  rarely  leave  more  than  a  very  brief  line  of 
progeny  behind  them.     Men  of  genius  have  scarcely 
ever  done  so ;  men  of  imaginative  genius,  we  might 
say,   almost  never.     With  the  one  exception  of  the 
noble  Surrey,  we  cannot,  at  this  moment,  point  out  a 
representative  in  the  male  line,  even  so  far  down  as  the 
third  generation,  of  any  English  poet ;  and  we  believe 
the  case  is  the  same  in  France.     The  blood  of  beings 
of  that  order  can  seldom  be  traced  far  down,  even  in 
the  female  line.     With  the  exception  of  Surrey  and 
Spenser,  we  are  not  aware  of  any  great  English  author 
of  at  all  remote  date,   from  whose  body  any  living 
person  claims  to  be  descended.    There  is  no  real  Eng- 
lish poet  prior  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
and  we  believe  no  great  author  of  any  sort,  except 
Clarendon  and  Shaftesbury,  of  whose  blood  we  have 
any  inheritance  amongst  us.     Chaucer's  only  son  died 
childless ;  Shakspeare's  line  expired  in  his  daughter's 
only  daughter.     None  of  the  other  dramatists  of  that 
age  left  any  progeny;  nor  Raleigh,  nor  Bacon,  nor 
Cowley,  nor  Butler.     The  grand-daughter  of  Milton 
was  the  last  of  his   blood.     Newton,  Locke,   Pope, 


10  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Swift,  Arbuthnot,  Hume,  Gibbon,  Cowper,  Gray, 
Walpole,  Cavendish  (and  we  might  greatly  extend 
the  list),  never  married.  Neither  Bolingbroke,  nor 
Addison,  nor  Warburton,  nor  Johnson,  nor  Burke, 
transmitted  their  blood.  One  of  the  arguments 
against  a  perpetuity  in  literary  property  is,  that  it 
would  be  founding  another  noblesse.  Neither  jealous 
aristocracy  nor  envious  Jacobinism  need  be  under  such 
alarm.  When  a  human  race  has  produced  its  '  bright, 
consummate  flower'  in  this  kind,  it  seems  commonly 
to  be  near  its  end." 


THE   BLUE-STOCKING   CLUB. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  last  century,  there  met  at  Mrs. 
Montague's  a  literary  assembly,  called  "  The  Blue- 
Stocking  Club,"  in  consequence  of  one  of  the  most 
admired  of  the  members,  Mr.  Benjamin  Stillingfleet, 
always  wearing  hlue  stockings.  The  appellation  soon 
became  general  as  a  name  for  pedantic  or  ridiculous 
literary  ladies.  Hannah  More  wrote  a  volume  in  verse, 
entitled  The  Bas  Bleu  :  or  Conversation.  It  proceeds 
on  the  mistake  of  a  foreigner,  who,  hearing  of  the 
Blue- Stocking  Club,  translated  it  literally  Bas  Bleu. 
Johnson  styled  this  poem  "  a  great  performance."  The 
following  couplets  have  been  quoted,  and  remembered, 
as  terse  and  pointed : — 

"  In  men  this  blunder  still  you  find, 
All  think  their  little  set  mankind." 

"  Small  habits  well  pursued  betimes, 
'   Hay  reach  the  dignity  of  crimeo." 


JOHNSON  AND  HANNAH  MORE.        11 

DR.  JOHNSON  AND  HANNAH  MORE 
When  Hannah  More  came  to  London  in  1773,  or 
1774,  she  Wiis  domesticated  with  Garrick,  and  was 
received  with  favour  by  Johnson,  Reynolds,  and 
Burke.  Her  sister  has  thus  described  her  first  inter- 
view with  Johnson  : — 

"  We  have  paid  another  visit  to  Miss  Reynolds  ;  she 
had  sent  to  engage  Dr.  Percy,  ('  Percy's  Collection,'  now 
you  know  him),  quite  a  sprightly  modern,  instead  of 
a  rustj'  antique,  as  I  expected :  he  was  no  sooner  gone 
than  the  most  amiable  and  obliging  of  women,  Miss 
Reynolds,  ordered  the  coach  to  take  us  to  Dr.  John- 
son's very  own  house :  yes,  Abyssinian  Johnson ! 
Dictionary  Johnson  !  Ramblers,  Idlers,  and  Irene 
Johnson !  Can  you  picture  to  yourselves  the  palpi- 
tation of  our  hearts  as  we  approached  his  mansion? 
The  conversation  turned  upon  a  new  work  of  his  just 
going  to  the  press  (the  '  Tour  to  the  Hebrides),  and  his 
old  friend  Richardson.  Mrs.  Williams,  the  blind 
poet,  who  lives  with  him,  was  introduced  to  us.  She 
is  engaging  in  her  manners,  her  conversation  lively 
and  entertaining.  ■  Miss  Reynolds  told  the  Doctor  of 
all  our  rapturous  exclamations  on  the  road.  He  shook 
his  scientific  head  at  Hannah,  and  said  she  was  'a 
silly  thing.'  When  our  visit  was  ended,  he  called 
for  his  hat,  as  it  rained,  to  attend  us  down  a  very  long 
entry  to  our  coach,  and  not  Rasselas  could  have  ac- 
quitted himself  more  en  cavalier.  I  forgot  to  mention, 
that  not  finding  Johnson  in  his  little  parlour  when  wa 
came  in,  Hannah  seated  herself  in  his  great  chair 


12  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

hoping  to  catch  a  little  ray  of  his  genius :  when  he 
heard  it,  he  laughed  heartily,  and  told  her  it  was  a 
chair  on  which  he  never  sat.  He  said  it  reminded 
him  of  Boswell  and  himself  when  they  stopped  a  night, 
as  they  imagined,  where  the  weird  sisters  appeared  to 
Macbeth.  The  idea  so  worked  on  their  enthusiasm, 
that  it  quite  deprived  them  of  rest.  However,  they 
learned  the  next  morning,  to  their  mortification,  that 
they  had  been  deceived,  and  were  quite  in  another 
part  of  the  country." 


MISS  MITFORD  S  FAREWELL  TO  THREE  MILE 
CROSS. 
"When  Miss  Mitford  left  her  rustic  cottage  at  Three 
Mile  Cross,  and  removed  to  Reading,   (the   Belford 
Regis  of  her  novel),  she  penned  the  following  beautiful 
picture  of  its  homely  joys  ■ — 

"Farewell,  then,  my  beloved  village!  the  long, 
straggling  street,  gay  and  bright  on  this  sunny,  windy 
April  morning,  full  of  all  implements  of  dirt  and  mire, 
men,  women,  children,  cows,  horses,  wagons,  carts, 
pigs,  dogs,  geese,  and  chickens — busy,  merry,  stirring 
little  world,  farewell !  Farewell  to  the  winding,  up-hill 
road,  with  its  clouds  of  dust,  as  horsemen  and  car- 
riages ascend  the  gentle  eminence,  its  borders  of  turf, 
and  its  primrosy  hedges !  Farewell  to  the  breezy 
common,  with  its  islands  of  cottages  and  cottage- 
gardens  ;  its  oaken  avenues,  populous  with  rooks ;  its 
clear  waters  fringed  with  gorse,  where  lambs  are 
straying;  its  cricket- ground  where  children  already 
linger,  anticipating  their  summer  revelry ;  its  pretty 


SMOLLETT  AND  COLLINS.  13 

boundary  of  field  and  woodland,  and  distant  farms ; 
and  latest  and  best  of  its  ornaments,  the  dear  and 
pleasant  mansion  where  dwelt  the  neighbours,  the 
friends  of  friends ;  farewell  to  ye  all !  Ye  will  easily 
dispense  with  me,  but  what  I  shall  do  without  you,  I 
cannot  imagine.     Mine  own  dear  village,  farewell !" 


SMOLLETT  S  "  HUGH  STRAP. 
In  the  year  1 809  was  interred,  in  the  churchyard  of 
St.  Martin's-in-the  Fields,  the  body  of  one  Hew  Hew- 
son,  who  died  at  the  age  of  85.  He  was  the  original  of 
Hugh  Strap,  in  Smollett's  Roderick  Random.  Upwards 
of  forty  years  he  kept  a  hair-dresser's  shop  in  St. 
Martin's  parish;  the  walls  were  hung  round  with 
Latin  quotations,  and  he  would  frequently  point  out  to 
his  customers  and  acquaintances  the  several  scenes  in 
Roderick  Random  pertaining  to  himself,  which  had 
their  origin,  not  in  Smollett's  inventive  fancy,  but  in 
truth  and  reality.  The  meeting  in  a  barber's  shop  at 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  the  subsequent  mistake  at  the 
inn,  their  arrival  together  in  London,  and  the  as- 
sistance they  experienced  from  Strap's  friend,  are  all 
facts.  The  barber  left  behind  an  annotated  copy  of 
Roderick  Random,  showing  how  far  we  are  indebted 
to  the  genius  of  the  author,  and  to  what  extent  the  in- 
cidents are  founded  in  reality'. 


COLLINS'S   POEMS. 
Mh.  John  Ragsdale,  of  Richmond,  in  Surrey,  who 
was  the  intimate  friend  of  Collins,  states  that  some  of 
liis   Odes  were  written  while  on  a   visit  at  his,  Mr 


14  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Ragsdale's  house.  The  poet,  however,  had  such  a  poor 
opinion  of  his  own  productions,  that  after  showing 
them  to  Mr.  Ragsdale,  he  would  snatch  them  from 
him,  and  throw  them  into  the  fire ;  and  in  this  way, 
it  is  believed,  many  of  Collins's  finest  pieces  were 
destroyed.  Such  of  his  Odes  as  were  published) 
on  his  own  account  in  1746,  were  not  popular;  and, 
disappointed  at  the  slowness  of  the  sale,  the  poet  burnt 
the  remaining  copies  with  his  own  hands. 


CAPTAIN    MORRIS  S    SONGS. 

Alas  !  poor  Morris — writes  one — we  knew  him  well. 
Who  that  has  once  read  or  heard  his  songs,  can 
forget  their  rich  and  graceful  imagery;  the  fertile 
fancy,  the  touching  sentiment,  and  the  "soul  reviving" 
melody,  which  characterize  every  line  of  these  de- 
lightful lyrics  ?  Well  do  we  remember,  too,  his  "  old 
buff  waistcoat,"  his  courteous  manner,  and  his  gentle- 
manly pleasantry,  long  after  this  Nestor  of  song  had 
retired  to  enjoy  the  delights  of  rural  life,  despite  the 
prayer  of  his  racy  verse  : 

"  In  town  let  me  live,  then,  in  town  let  me  die ; 
For  in  trutli  I  can't  relish  the  country,  not  I. 
If  one  must  have  a  villa  in  summer  to  dwell, 
Oh !  give  me  the  sweet,  shady  side  of  Pall  Mall." 

Captain  Morris  was  born  about  the  middle  of  the  last 
century,  and  outlived  the  majority  of  the  ban  vivant 
society  which  he  gladdened  with  his  genius,  and  lit  up 
with  his  brilliant  humour. 

Yet,  many  readers  of  the  present  generation  may 


MORRIS'S  SONGS.  15 

ask,  "Who  was  Captain  Morris?"  He  was  born  of 
good  family,  in  the  celebrated  year  1745,  and  appears 
to  have  inherited  a  taste  for  literary  composition;  for 
his  father  composed  the  popular  song  oi  Kitty  Crowder. 

For  more  than  half  a  century,  Captain  Morris  moved 
in  the  first  circles.  He  was  the  "  sun  of  the  table"  at 
Carlton  House,  as  well  as  at  Norfolk  House ;  and 
attaching  himself  politically,  as  well  as  convivially,  to 
his  dinner  companions,  he  composed  the  celebrated 
ballads  of  "  Billy's  too  young  to  drive  us,"  and  "  Billy 
Pitt  and  the  Farmer,"  which  continued  long  in  fashion, 
RS  brilliant  satires  upon  the  ascendant  politics  of  their 
day.  His  humorous  ridicule  of  the  Tories  was,  how- 
ever, but  ill  repaid  by  the  Whigs  upon  their  accession 
to  office ;  at  least,  if  we  may  trust  the  beautiful  ode  of 
"  The  Old  Whig  Poet  to  his  Old  Buff  Waistcoat."  We 
are  not  aware  of  this  piece  being  included  in  any 
edition  of  the  "  Songs."  It  bears  date  "  G.  R.,  August 
1,  1815  ;"  six  years  subsequent  to  which  we  saw  it 
among  the  papers  of  the  late  Alexander  Stephens. 

Captain  Morris's  "  Songs"  were  very  popular.  In 
1830,  we  possessed  a  copy  of  the  24th  edition ;  we 
remember  one  of  the  ditties  to  have  been  "  sung  by 
the  Prince  of  Wales  to  a  certain  lady,"  to  the  air  of 
"  There's  a  difference  between  a  beggar  and  a  queen." 
Morris's  finest  Anacreontic,  is  the  song  Ad  Poculum, 
for  which  he  received  the  gold  cup  of  the  Harmonic 
Society: 

"  Come  thou  soul-reviving  cup  I 

Try  thy  healing  art ; 
Stir  the  fancy's  visions  up, 

And  warm  my  wasted  heart. 


16  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Touch  with  freshening  tints  of  bliss 

Memory's  fading  dream ; 
Give  me,  while  thy  lip  I  kiss, 

The  heaven  that's  in  thy  stream." 

Of  the  famous  Beefsteak  Club,  (at  first  limited  to 
twenty-four  members,  but  increased  to  twenty-five,  to 
admit  the  Prince  of  Wales,)  Captain  Morris  was  the 
laureat ;  of  this  "  Jovial  System"  he  was  the  intel- 
lectual centre.  In  the  year  1831,  he  bade  adieu  to  the 
club,  in  some  spirited  stanzas,  though  penned  at  "  an 
age  far  beyond  mortal  lot."  In  1835,  he  was  permitted 
to  revisit  the  club,  when  they  presented  him  with  a 
large  silver  bowl,  appropriately  inscribed. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  string  together  gems 

from  the  Captain's  Lyrics.  In  "  The  Toper's  Apology, 

one  of  his  most  sparkling  songs,  occurs  this  brilliant 

version  of  Addison's  comparison  of  wits  with  flying 

fish:— 

"  My  Muse,  too,  when  her  wings  are  dry, 
No  frolic  flight  will  take  ; 
But  round  a  bowl  she'll  dip  and  fly, 

Like  swallows  round  a  lake. 
Then,  if  the  nymph  will  have  her  share 

Before  she'll  bless  her  swain. 
Why  that  I  think's  a  reason  fair 
To  fill  my  glass  again." 

Many  j'-ears  since,  Captain  Morris  retired  to  a  villa 

at   Brockham,  near  the  foot  of  Box  Hill,  in  Surrey. 

This  property,  it  is  said,  was  presented  to  him  by  his 

old  friend,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.     Here  the  Captain 

"drank  the  pure  pleasures  of  the  rural  life"  long  after 

many  a  bright  light  of  his  own  time  had  flickered  out, 

and  become  almost  forgotten  ;  even  "  the  sweet,  shady 

side  of  Pall  Mall"  had  almost  disappeared,  and  with  it 


LITERARY  DINNERS.  17 

the  princely  house  whereat  he  was  wont  to  shine.  He 
died  July  11,  1835,  in  his  ninety-third  year,  of  in- 
ternal inflammation  of  only  four  days. 

Morris  presented  a  rare  combination  of  mirth  and 
prudence,  such  as  human  conduct  seldom  offers  for  our 
imitation.  He  retained  his  gaieti.  de  cceur  to  the  last ; 
so  that,  with  equal  truth  and  spirit,  he  remonstrated : 

"  When  life  charms  my  heart,  must  I  kindly  be  told, 
I'm  too  gay  and  too  happy  for  one  that's  so  old." 

Captain  Morris  left  his  autobiography  to  his  family  5 

but  it  has  not  been  published. 


LITEEAEY  DINNERS. 
Incredible  as  it  may  appear,  it  is  sometimes  stated 
very  confidently,  that  English  authors  and  actors  who 
give  dinners,  are  treated  with  greater  indulgence  by 
certain  critics  than  those  who  do  not.  But,  it  has 
never  been  said  that  any  critical  journal  in  England, 
with  the  slightest  pretensions  to  respectability,  ^^as  in 
the  habit  of  levying  black  mail  in  this  Kob  E,oy 
fashion,  upon  writers  or  articles'  of  any  kind.  Yet  it 
is  alleged,  on  high  authority,  that  many  of  the  French 
critical  journals  are  or  were  principally  supported 
from  such  a  source.  For  example,  there  is  a  current 
anecdote  to  the  effect  that  when  the  celebrated  singer 
Kourrit  died,  the  editor  of  one  of  the  musical  reviews 
waited  on  his  successor,  Duprez,  and,  with  a  profusion 
of  compliments  and  apologies,  intimated  to  him  that 
Nourrit  had  invariably  allowed  2000  francs  a  year  to 
the  review.     Duprez,  taken  rather  aback,  expressed 

B 


18  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

his  readiness  to  allow  half  that  sum.  '■'•  Bien,  mon- 
sieur^'' said  the  editor,  with  a  shrug,  "  mais,  parole 
d'honneur,fy  perds  mille  francs^ 


POPULARITY  OF  THE  PICKWICK  PAPERS. 
Mb.  Davy,  who  accompanied  Colonel  Cheney  up  the 
Euphrates,  was  for  a  time  in  the  service  of  Mehemet 
All  Pacha.  "  Pickwick"  happening  to  reach  Davy 
while  he  was  at  Damascus,  he  tead  a  part  of  it  to  the 
Pacha,  who  was  so  delighted  with  it,  that  Davy  was, 
on  one  occasion,  called  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
to  finish  the  reading  of  the  chapter  in  which  he  and  the 
Pacha  had  heen  interrupted.  Mr.  Davy  read,  in 
Eirypt,  upon  another  occasion,  some  passages  from 
these  unrivalled  "  Papers"  to  a  blind  Englishman,  who 
was  in  such  ecstasy  with  what  he  heard,  that  he  ex- 
claimed he  was  almost  thankful  he  could  not  see  he 
■was  in  a  foreign  country ;  for  that  while  he  listened, 
he  felt  completely  as  though  he  were  again  in  Eng- 
land.— Lady  Chattertnn. 


SWIFTS  DISAPPOINTMENT. 
**  I  REMEMBER  whcn  I  was  a  little  boy,  (writes  Swift 
in  a  letter  toBolingbroke,)  I  felt  a  great  fish  at  the  end 
of  my  line,  which  I  drew  up  almost  on  the  ground, 
but  it  dropt  in,  and  the  disappointment  vexes  me  to 
this  day;  and  I  believe  it  was  the  type  of  all  my 
future  disappointments." 

"This  little  incident,"   writes   Percival,  "perhaps 


Z.  HUNT  AND  T.  CARLYLE.  19 

gave  the  first  wrong  bias  to  a  mind  predisposed  to  such 
impressions ;  and  by  operating  with  so  much  strength 
and  permanency,  it  might  possibly  lay  the  foundation 
of  the  Dean's  subsequent  peevishness,  passion,  misan- 
thropy, and  final  insanity." 


LEIGH   HUNT   AND    THOMAS    CARLYLE. 
TuE  following  characteristic  story  of  these  two  "  in- 
tellectual gladiators"  is  related  in  "  A  New  Spirit  of 
the  Age." 

Leigh  Hunt  and  Carlyle  were  once  present  among 
a  small  party  of  equally  well  known  men.  It  chanced 
that  the  conversation  rested  with  these  two,  both  first- 
rate  talkers,  and  the  others  sat  well  pleased  to  listen. 
Leigh  Hunt  had  said  something  about  the  islands  of 
the  Blest,  or  El  Dorado,  or  the  Millennium,  and 
was  flowing  on  in  his  bright  and  hopeful  way,  when 
Carlyle  dropt  some  heavy  tree-trunk  across  Hunt's 
pleasant  stream,  and  banked  it  up  with  philosophical 
doubts  and  objections  at  every  interval  of  the  speaker's 
joyous  progress.  But  the  unmitigated  Hunt  never 
ceased  his  overflowing  anticipations,  nor  the  saturnine 
Carlyle  his  infinite  demurs  to  those  finite  flourishings. 
The  listeners  laughed  and  applauded  by  turns ;  and 
had  now  fairly  pitfed  them  against  each  other,  as 
the  philosopher  of  Hopefulness  and  of  the  Unhopeful. 
The  contest  continued  with  all  that  ready  wit  and 
philosophy,  that  mixture  of  pleasantry  and  profundity, 
that  extensive  knowledge  of  books  and  character,  with 
their  ready  application  in  argument  or  illustration,  and 


20  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

that  perfect  ease  and  good-nature,  which  distinorui^h 
each  of  these  men.  The  opponents  were  so  well  matched, 
that  it  was  quite  clear  the  contest  would  never  come 
to  an  end.  But  the  night  was  far  advanced,  and  the 
party  broke  up.  They  all  sallied  forth ;  and  leaving 
the  close  room,  the  candles  and  the  arguments  behind 
them,  suddenly  found  themselves  in  presence  of  a  moit 
brilliant  star-light  night.  They  all  looked  up.  "  Now," 
thought  Hunt,  "  Carlyle's  done  for  ! — he  can  have  no 
answer  to  thiit !"  "  There !"  shouted  Hunt,  "  look  up 
there !  look  at  that  glorious  harmony,  that  sings  with 
infinite  voices  an  eternal  song  of  hope  in  the  soul  of 
man."  Carlyle  looked  up.  They  all  remained  silent 
to  hear  what  he  would  say.  They  began  to  think  he 
was  silenced  at  last — he  was  a  mortal  man.  But  out 
of  that  silence  came  a  few  low-toned  words,  in  a  broad 
Scotch  accent.  And  who,  on  earth,  could  have  an- 
ticipated  wdiat   the   voice   said  ?     "  Eh  !    it's   a  sad 

sight!" Hunt  sat  down  on  a  stone  step.     They  all 

laughed — then  looked  very  thoughtful.  Had  the  finite 
measured  itself  with  infinity,  instead  of  surrendering 
itself  up  to  the  influence  ?  Again  they  laughed — then 
bade  each  other  good  night,  and  betook  themselves 
homeward  with  slow  and  serious  pace.  There  might 
be  some  reason  for  sadness,  too.  That  brilliant  firma- 
ment probally  contained  infinite  worlds,  each  full  of 
struggling  and  suffering  beings — of  beings  who  had 
to  die — for  life  in  the  stars  implies  that  those  bright 
worlds  should  also  be  full  of  graves ;  but  all  that  life, 
like  ours,  knowing  not  whence  it  came,  nor  whither  it 
goeth,  and  the  brilliant  Universe  in  its  great  Move- 


COWPERS  POEMS.  21 

ment  having,  perhaps,  no  more  certain  knowledge  of 
itself,  nor  of  its  ultimate  destination,  than  hath  one  of 
the  suffering  specks  that  compose  this  small  spot  we 
inherit. 


COWPEES   POEMS. 

JoHKSON,  the  publisher  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  ob- 
tained the  copyright  of  Cowper's  Poems,  which  proved 
a  great  source  of  profit  to  him,  in  the  following  man- 
ner : — One  evening,  a  relation  of  Cowper's  called  upon 
Johnson  with  a  portion  of  the  MS.  poems,  which  he 
offered  for  publication,  provided  Johnson  would  pub- 
lish them  at  his  own  risk,  and  allow  the  author  to  have 
a  few  copies  to  give  to  his  friends.  Johnson  read  the 
poems,  approved  of  them,  and  accordingly  published 
them.  Soon  after  they  had  appeared,  there  was 
scarcely  a  reviewer  who  did  not  load  them  with  the 
most  scurrilous  abuse,  and  condemn  them  to  the  butter 
shops ;  and  the  public  taste  being  thus  terrified  or 
misled,  these  charming  effusions  stood  in  the  corner  of 
the  publisher  s  shop  as  an  unsaleable  pile  for  a  long 
time. 

At  length,  Cowper's  relation  called  upon  Johnson 
with  another  bundle  of  the  poet's  MS,  which  was 
offered  and  accepted  upon  the  same  terms  as  before. 
In  this  fresh  collection  was  the  poem  of  the  "  Task." 
Kot  alarmed  at  the  fate  of  the  former  publication,  but 
thoroughly  assured  of  the  great  merit  of  the  poems, 
they  were  published.  The  tone  of  the  reviewers  be- 
came changed,  and  Cowper  was  hailed  as  the  first  poeJ 


22  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

of  the  age.  The  success  of  this  second  publication  set 
the  first  in  motion.  Johnson  immediately  reaped  the 
fruits  of  his  undaunted  judgment  ;  and  Cowper's 
poems  enriched  the  publisher,  when  the  poet  was 
in  languishing  circumstances.  In  October,  1812,  the 
copyright  of  Cowper's  poems  was  put  up  to  sale  among 
the  London  booksellers,  in  thirty-two  shares.  Twenty 
of  the  shares  were  sold  at  212Z.  each.  The  work,  con- 
sisting of  two  octavo  volumes,  was  satisfactorily  proved 
at  the  sale  to  net  834Z.  per  annum.  It  had  only  two 
years  of  copyright ;  yet  this  same  copyright  produced 
the  sum  of  6764Z. 


hearne's  love  of  ale. 

Thomas  Wakton,  in  his  Accoirat  of  Oxford,  relates  that 
at  the  sign  of  W'hittington  and  his  Cat,  the  laborious  an- 
tiquary, Thomas  Hearne,  "one  evening  suffered  himself 
to  be  overtaken  in  liquor.  But,  it  should  be  remembered, 
that  this  accident  was  more  owingto  his  love  of  antiquity 
than  of  ale.  It  happened  that  the  kitchen  where  he  and 
his  companion  were  sitting  was  neatly  paved  with  sheep's 
trotters  disposed  in  various  compartments.  After  one 
pipe,  Mr.  Hearne,  consistently  with  his  usual  gravity 
and  sobriety,  rose  to  depart ;  but  his  friend,  who  was 
inclined  to  enjoy  more  of  his  company,  artfully  ob- 
served, that  the  floor  on  which  they  were  then  sitting 
was  no  less  than  an  original  tesselated  Roman  pave- 
ment. Out  of  respect  to  classic  ground,  and  on  recol- 
lection that  the  Stunsfield  Roman  pavement,  on  which 
he  had  just  published  a  dissertation,  was  dedicated  to 


SHERIDAN'S  WIT.  23 

Bacchus,  our  antiquary  cheerfully  complied ;  an  en- 
thusiastic transport  seized  his  imagination ;  he  fell  on 
his  knees  and  kissed  the  sacred  earth,  on  which,  in  a 
few  hours,  and  after  a  few  tankards,  by  a  sort  of  sym- 
pathetic attraction,  he  was  obliged  to  repose  for  some 
part  of  the  evening.  His  friend  was,  probably,  in  the 
isame  condition  ;  but  two  printers  accidentally  coming 
in,  conducted  Mr.  Hearne,  between  them,  to  Edmund's 
Hall,  with  much  state  and  solemnity." 


SHERIDAN  S  WIT. 
Shebidan's  wit  was  eminently  brilliant,  and  almost 
always  successful ;  it  was,  like  all  his  speaking,  ex- 
ceedingly prepared,  but  it  was  skilfully  introduced  and 
happily  applied ;  and  it  was  well  mingled,  also,  with 
humour,  occasionally  descending  to  farce.  How  little 
it  was  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  all  men  were 
aware  who  knew  his  habits ;  but  a  singular  proof  of 
this  was  presented  to  Mr.  Moore,  when  he  came  to 
write  his  life ;  for  we  there  find  given  to  the  world, 
with  a  frankness  which  must  have  almost  made  their 
author  shake  in  his  grave,  the  secret  note-books  of  this 
famous  wit ;  and  are  thus  enabled  to  trace  the  jokes,  in 
embryo,  with  which  he  had  so  often  made  the  walls  of 
St.  Stephen's  shake,  in  a  merriment  excited  by  the 
happy  appearance  of  sudden  unpremeditated  effusion. 
— Lord  Brougham. 

Take  an  instance  from  this  author,  giving  extracts 
from  the  common-place  book  of  the  wit : — "  He  em- 
ploys his  fancy  in  his  narrative,  and  keeps  his  recollec- 


24  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

tions  for  his  wit."  Again,  the  same  idea  is  expanded 
into  "  When  he  makes  his  jokes,  you  applaud  the  accu- 
racy of  his  memory,  and  'tis  only  when  he  states  his 
facts  that  you  admire  the  flights  of  his  imagination." 
But  the  thought  was  too  good  to  be  thus  wasted  on 
the  desert  air  of  a  common-place  book.  So,  forth  it 
came,  at  the  expense  of  Kelly,  who,  having  been  a 
composer  of  music,  became  a  wine-merchant.  "  You 
will,"  said  the  ready  wit,  "  import  your  music  and 
compose  your  wine."  Nor  was  this  service  exacted 
from  the  old  idea  thought  sufficient ;  so,  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  an  easy  and,  apparently,  off-hand  pa- 
renthesis was  thus  filled  with  it,  at  Mr.  Dundas's  cost 
and  charge,  "  who  generally  resorts  to  his  memory  for 
his  jokes,  and  to  his  imagination  for  his  facts." 


SMOLLETT  S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 
This  man  of  genius  among  trading  authors,  before  he 
began  his  History  of  England,  wrote  to  the  Earl  of 
Shelburne,  then  in  the  Whig  Administration,  offering, 
if  the  Earl  would  procure  for  his  work  the  patronao-e 
of  the  Government,  he  would  accommodate  his  politics 
to  the  Ministry  ;  but  if  not,  that  he  had  high  promises 
of  support  from  the  other  party.  Lord  Shelbunie,  of 
course,  treated  the  proffered  support  of  a  writer  of 
such  accommodating  principles  with  contempt;  and 
the  work  of  Smollett,  accordingly,  became  distin- 
guished for  its  high  Toryism.  The  history  was  pub- 
lished in  sixpenny  weekly  numbers,  of  which  20,000 
copies  were  sold  immediately.     This  extraordinary 


FOX  AND  GIBBON.  25 

popularity  was  created  by  the  artifice  of  the  publisher. 
He  is  stated  to  have  addressed  a  packet  of  the  speci- 
mens of  the  publication  to  every  parish-clerk  in  Eng- 
land, carriage-free,  with  half-a-crown  enclosed  as  a 
compliment,  to  have  them  distributed  through  the 
pews  of  the  church :  this  being  generally  done, 
many  people  read  the  specimens  instead  of  listening 
to  the  sermon,  and  the  result  was  an  universal  demand 
for  the  work. 


MAGNA  CHARTA  EECOVERED. 
The  transcript  of  Magna  Charta,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  was  discovered  by  Sir  Robert  Cotton  in  the 
possession  of  his  tailor,  who  was  just  about  to  cut  the 
precious  document  out  into  "  measures  "for  his  custom- 
ers. Sir  Robert  redeemed  the  valuable  curiosity  at  the 
price  of  old  parchment,  and  thus  recovered  what  had 
long  been  supposed  to  be  irretrievably  lost. 


FOX  AND  GIBBON. 
When  Mr.  Fox's  furniture  was  sold  by  auction,  after 
his  decease  in  1806,  amongst  his  books  there  was  the 
first  volume  of  his  friend  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire  :  by  the  title-page,  it  appeared  to 
have  been  presented  by  the  author  to  Fox,  who,  on 
the  blank  leaf,  had  written  this  anecdote  of  the  his- 
torian : — "  The  author,  at  Brookes's,  said  there  was  no 
salvation  for  this  country  until  six  heads  of  the  prin- 
cipal persons  in  administration  were  laid  upon  the 
table.  Eleven  days  after,  this  same  gentleman  accepted 


26  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

a  place  of  lord  of  trade  under  those  very  ministers,  and 
has  acted  with  them  ever  since !"  Such  was  the  avi- 
dity of  bidders  for  the  most  trifling  production  of  Fox's 
genius,  that,  by  the  addition  of  this  little  record,  the 
book  sold  for  three  guiaeas. 


DR.  JOHNSON  S  PRIDE. 
Sir  Joshua  Retnolbs  used  to  relate  the  following  cha- 
racteristic anecdote  of  Johnson : — About  the  time  of 
their  early  acquaintance,  they  met  one  evening  at  the 
Misses  Cotterell's,  when  the  Duchess  of  Argyll  and 
another  lady  of  rank  came  in.  Johnson,  thinking 
that  the  Misses  Cotterell  were  too  much  engrossed 
by  them,  and  that  he  and  his  friend  were  neg- 
lected as  low  company,  of  whom  they  were  somewhat 
ashamed,  grew  angry,  and,  resolving  to  shock  their 
suspected  pride,  by  making  the  great  visitors  imagine 
they  were  low  indeed,  Johnson  addressed  himself  in 
a  loud  tone  to  Reynolds,  saying,  "  How  much  do  you 
think  you  and  I  could  get  in  a  week  if  we  were  to 
work  as  hard  as  we  could  ?"  just  as  though  they  were 
ordinary  mechanics. 

LORD    BYRON'S    "  CORSAIR. 

The  Earl  of  Dudley,  in  his  Letters,  (1814)  says: — 
"  To  me  Byron's  Corsair  appears  the  best  of  all  his 
works.  Rapidity  of  execution  is  no  sort  of  apology 
for  d^ing  a  thing  ill,  but  when  it  is  done  well,  the 
wonder  is  so  much  the  greater.     1  am  told  he  wrote 


LITTLE  BRITAIN  BOOKSELLERS.     27 

this  poem  at  ten  sittings — certainly  it  did  not  tal^e  him 
more  than  three  weeks.  He  is  a  most  extraordinary  per- 
son, and  yet  there  is  G.  Ellis,  who  don't  feel  his  merit 
His  creed  in  modern  poetry  (I  should  have  said  con- 
temporary)  is  Walter  Scott,  allWalter  Scott,  and  nothing 
butWalter  Scott.  1  cannot  say  how  I  hate  this  petty,  fac- 
tious spirit  in  literature — it  is  so  unworthy  of  a  man  so 
clover  and  so  accomplished  as  Ellis  undoubtedly  is." 


BOOKSELLEES  IN  LITTLE  BRITAIN. 
Little  Britain,  anciently  Breton-street,  from  the 
mansion  of  the  Duke  of  Bretagne  on  that  spot,  in 
more  modern  times  became  the  "  Paternoster-row" 
of  the  booksellers  ;  and  a  newspaper  of  1664  states 
them  to  have  published  here  within  four  years,  464 
pamphlets.  One  Chiswell,  resident  here  in  1711,  was 
the  metropolitan  bookseller,  "the  Longman"  of  his 
time :  and  here  lived  Rawlinson  ("Tom  Folio"  of  The 
Tatler,  No.  158),  who  stuffed  four  chambers  in  Gray's 
Inn  so  full,  that  his  bed  was  removed  into  the  passage. 
John  Day,  the  famous  early  printer,  lived  "over 
Aldersgate." 


RECONCILING  THE  FATHERS, 
A-  Dean  of  Gloucester  having  some  merry  divines  at 
dinner  with  him  one  day,  amongst  other  discourses 
they  were  talking  of  reconciling  the  Fathers  on  some 
points ;  he  told  them  he  could  show  them  the  best  way 
in  the  world  to  reconcile  them  on  all  points  of  differ- 
?nce ;  so,  after  dinner,  he  carried  them  into  his  study, 


28  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

and  sflowed  them  all  the  Fathers,  classically  ordered, 
with  a  quart  of  sack  betwixt  each  of  them. 


DE.  PAEE  AND  SIE  JAMES  MACKINTOSH. 

Sib  James  once  asked  Dr.  Parr  to  join  him  in  a  drive 
in  his  gig.  The  horse  growing  restive — "  Gently, 
Jemmy,"  the  Doctor  said;  "  don't  irritate  him;  always 
soothe  your  horse,  Jemmy.  You'll  do  better  without 
me.  Let  me  down,  Jemmy ! "  But  once  safe  on  the 
ground — "  Now,  Jemmy,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  touch  him 
up.  Never  let  a  horse  get  the  better  of  you.  Touch 
him  up,  conquer  him,  do  not  spare  him.  And  now 
I'll  leave  you  to  manage  him  ;  I'll  walk  back." 


SIR  JAMES  mackintosh's  HUMOUR. 
Sib  James  Mackintosh  had  a  great  deal  of  humour ; 
and,  among  many  other  examples  of  it,  he  kept  a 
dinner-party  at  his  own  house  for  two  or  three  hours 
in  a  roar  of  laughter,  playing  upon  the  simplicity  of 
a  Scotch  cousin,  who  had  mistaken  the  Kev.  Sydney 
Smith  for  his  gallant  synonym,  the  hero  of  Acre. 


WRITINGS    OF   LOPE    DE    VEGA. 

The  numberofLopede  Vega's  works  has  been  strangely 
exaggerated  by  some,  but  by  others  reduced  to  about 
one-sixth  of  the  usual  statement.  Upon  this  compu- 
tation it  will  be  found  that  some  of  his  contemporaries 
were  as  prolific  as  himself.  Vincent  Mariner,  a  friend 
of  Lope,  left  behind  him  360  quires  of  paper  full  of 
his  own  compositions,   in  a  writing  so  exceedingly 


LOPE  DE  VEGA.  29 

small,  and  so  exceedingly  bad,  that  no  person  but  him- 
self could  read  it.  Lord  Holland  has  given  a  fac- 
simile of  Lope's  handwriting,  and  though  it  cannot  be 
compared  to  that  of  a  dramatist  of  late  times,  one  of 
whose  plays,  in  the  original  manuscript,  is  said  to  be  a 
sufficient  load  for  a  porter,  it  is  evident  that  one  of 
Mariner's  pages  would  contain  as  much  as  a  sheet  of  his 
friend's,  which  would,  as  nearly  as  possible,  balance  the 
sum  total.  But,  upon  this  subject,  an  epigram  by  Quarles 
may  be  applied,  written  upon  a  more  serious  theme : 

"  In  all  our  prayers  the  Almighty  does  regard 
The  judgment  of  the  balance,  not  tlie  yard  ; 
He  loves  not  words,  but  matter ;  'tis  his  pleasure 
To  buy  his  wares  by  weight,  not  by  measure." 

With  regard  to  the  quantity  of  Lope's  writings,  a 
complete  edition  of  them  would  not  much,  if  at  all, 
exceed  those  of  Voltaire,  who,  in  labour  of  composi- 
tion, for  he  sent  nothing  into  the  world  carelessly, 
must  have  greatly  exceeded  Lope.  And  the  labours 
of  these  men  shrinlc  into  insignificance  when  compared 
to  those  of  some  of  the  schoolmen  and  of  the  Fathers. 


POPULARITY  OF  LOPE  DE  VEGA. 
Other  writers,  of  the  same  age  with  Lope  de  Vega, 
obtained  a  wider  celebrity.  Don  Quixote,  during  the 
life  of  its  ill-requited  author,  was  naturalized  in 
countries  where  the  name  of  Lope  de  Vega  was  not 
known,  and  Du  Bartas  was  translated  into  the  lan- 
guage of  every  reading  people.  But  no  writer  ever 
has  enjoyed  such  a  share  of  popularity. 


30  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

"Cardinal  Barberini,"  says  Lord  Holland,  "fol- 
lowed Lope  with  veneration  in  the  streets ;  the  king 
would  stop  to  gaze  at  such  a  prodigy;  the  people 
crowded  round  him  wherever  he  appeared  ;  the  learned 
and  studious  thronged  to  Madrid  from  every  part  of 
Spain  to  see  this  phoenix  of  their  country,  this  monster 
of  literature ;  and  even  Italians,  no  extravagant  ad- 
mirers, in  general,  of  poetry  that  is  not  their  own, 
made  pilgrimages  from  their  country  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  conversing  with  Lope.  So  associated  was  the 
idea  of  excellence  with  his  name,  that  it  grew,  in  com- 
mon conversation,  to  signify  anything  perfect  in  its 
kind ;  and  a  Lope  diamond,  a  Lope  day,  or  a  Lope 
woman,  became  fashionable  and  familiar  modes  of  ex- 
pressing their  good  qualities." 

Lope's  death  produced  an  universal  commotion  ir 
the  court  and  in  the  whole  kingdom.  Many  ministers^ 
knights,  and  prelates  were  present  when  he  expired  ; 
among  others,  the  Duke  of  Sesa,  who  had  been  the 
most  munificent  of  his  patrons,  whom  he  appointed  his 
executor,  and  who  was  at  the  expense  of  his  funeral,  8 
mode  by  which  the  great  men  in  that  country  were 
fond  of  displaying  their  regard  for  men  of  letters.  It 
was  a  public  funeral,  and  it  was  not  performed  till  the 
third  day  after  his  death,  that  there  might  be  time  for 
rendering  it  more  splendid,  and  securing  a  more 
honourable  attendance.  The  grandees  and  nobles 
who  were  about  the  court  were  all  invited  as  mourners  5 
a  novenary  or  service  of  nine  daj'S  was  performed  for 
him,  at  which  the  musicians  of  the  royal  chapel  as- 
sisted ;  after  which  there  were  exequies  on  three  sue- 


SWIFT'S  LOVES.  31 

cessive  days,  at  which  three  bishops  of|f  ciated  in  fall 
pontificals  ;  and  on  each  day  a  funeral  sermon  was 
preached  by  one  of  the  most  famous  preachers  of  the 
age.  Such  honours  were  paid  to  the  memory  of 
Lope  de  Vega,  one  of  the  most  prolific,  and,  during 
his  life,  the  most  popular,  of  all  poets,  ancient  or 
modern. 


SWIFTS   LOVES. 

The  first  of  these  ladies,  whom  Swift  romantically 
christened  Varina,  was  a  Miss  JaneWaryng,  to  whom 
he  ■WTote  passionate  letters,  and  whom,  when  he  had 
succeeded  in  gaining  her  affections,  he  deserted,  after 
a  sort  of  seven  years'  courtship.  The  next  flame  of 
the  Dean's  was  the  well-known  Miss  Esther  Johnson, 
whom  he  fancifully  called  Stella.  Somehow,  he  had 
the  address  to  gain  her  decided  attachment  to  him, 
though  considerably  younger,  beautiful  in  person,  ac- 
complished, and  estimable.  He  dangled  upon  her,  fed 
her  hopes  of  an  union,  and  at  length  persuaded  her  to 
leave  London  and  reside  near  him  in  Ireland.  His 
conduct  then  was  of  a  piece  with  the  rest  of  his  life : 
he  never  saw  her  alone,  never  slept  under  the  same 
roof  with  her,  but  allowed  her  character  and  reputa- 
tion to  be  suspected,  in  consequence  of  their  intimacy ; 
nor  did  he  attempt  to  remove  such  by  marriage  until 
a  late  period  of  his  life,  when,  to  save  her  from  disso- 
lution, he  consented  to  the  ceremony,  upon  condition 
that  it  should  never  be  divulged ;  that  she  should  live 
OS  before ;  retain  her  own  name,  &c.  i  and  this  wed- 


82  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

ding,  upon  the  above  being  assented  to,  was  performed 
in  a  garden !  But  Swift  never  acknowledged  her  till 
the  day  of  his  death.  During  all  this  treatment  of 
his  Stella,  Swift  had  ingratiated  himself  with  a  young 
lady  of  fortune  and  fashion  in  London,  whose  name 
was  Vanhomrig,  and  whom  he  called  Vanessa.  It  is 
much  to  be  regretted  that  the  heartless  tormentor 
should  have  been  so  ardently  and  passionately  beloved, 
as  was  the  case  with  the  latter  lady.  Selfish,  hard- 
hearted as  was  Swift,  he  seemed  but  to  live  in  disap- 
pointing others.  Such  was  his  coldness  and  brutality 
to  Vanessa,  that  he  may  be  said  to  have  caused  her 
death. 


COLERIDGE  S    "  WATCHMAN. 

Coleridge,  among  his  many  speculations,  started 
a  periodical,  in  prose  and  verse,  entitled  The  Watch- 
man, with  the  motto,  "  that  all  might  know  the  truth, 
and  that  the  truth  might  make  us  free."  He  watched 
in  vain!  Coleridge's  incurable  want  of  order  and 
punctuality,  and  his  philosophical  theories,  tired  out 
and  disgusted  his  readers,  and  the  work  was  discon- 
tinued after  the  ninth  number.  Of  the  unsaleable 
nature  of  this  publication,  he  relates  an  amusing  illus- 
tration. Happening  one  morning  to  rise  at  an  earlier 
hour  than  usual,  he  observed  his  servant-girl  putting 
an  extravagant  quantity  of  paper  into  the  grate,  in 
order  to  light  the  fire,  and  he  milJly  checked  her  for 
her  wastefulness  :  "  La !  sir,"  replied  Nanny ;  "  why, 
it's  only  Watchmen" 


IRELAND'S  FORGERIES.  33 

Ireland's  shakspeare  forgeries. 

Mb.  Samuel  Ireland,  originally  a  silk  merchant  in 
Spitalfields,  was  led  by  his  taste  for  literary  antiquities 
to  abandon  trade  for  those  pursuits,  and  published 
several  tours.  One  of  them  consisted  of  an  excursion 
upon  the  river  Avon,  during  which  he  explored,  with 
ardent  curiosity,  every  locality  associated  with  Shak- 
speare. He  was  accompanied  by  his  son,  a  youth  of 
sixteen,  who  imbibed  a  portion  of  his  father's  Shak- 
spearean  mania.  The  youth,  perceiving  the  great  im- 
portance which  his  parent  attached  to  every  relic  of 
the  poet,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  he  sought  for 
any  of  his  MS.  remains,  conceived  that  it  would  not 
be  difficult  to  gratify  his  father  by  some  productions 
of  his  own,  in  the  language  and  manner  of  Shakspeare's 
time.  The  idea  possessed  his  mind  for  a  certain  period ; 
and,  in  1793,  being  then  in  his  eighteenth  year,  he 
produced  some  MSS.  said  to  be  in  the  handwriting  of 
Shakspeare,  which  he  said  had  been  given  him  by  a 
gentleman  possessed  of  many  other  old  papers.  The 
young  man,  being  articled  to  a  solicitor  in  Chancery, 
easily  fabricated,  in  the  first  instance,  the  deed  of  mort- 
gage from  Shakspeare  to  Michael  Fraser.  The  ecstasy 
expressed  by  his  father  urged  him  to  the  fabrication  of 
other  documents,  described  to  come  from  the  same 
quarter.  Emboldened  by  success,  he  ventured  upon 
higher  compositions  in  prose  and  verse ;  and  at  length 
announced  the  discovery  of  an  original  drama,  under 
the  title  of  Vortigem,  which  he  exhibited,  act  by  act, 
written  in  the  period  of  two  months.     Having  pro- 


84  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

vided  himself  with  the  paper  of  the  period,  (being  the 
flj-leaves  of  old  books,)  and  with  ink  prepared  by  a 
bookbinder,  no  suspicion  was  entertained  of  the  decep- 
tion. The  father,  who  was  a  maniac  upon  such  sub- 
jects, gave  such  eclat  to  the  supposed  discovery,  that 
the  attention  of  the  literary  world,  and  all  England, 
was  drawn  to  it;  insomuch  that  the  son,  who  had 
announced  other  papers,  found  it  impossible  to  retreat, 
and  was  goaded  into  the  production  of  the  series  which 
he  had  promised. 

The  house  of  Mr.  Ireland,  in  Norfolk-street,  Strand, 
was  daily  crowded  to  excess  by  persons  of  the  highest 
rank,  as  well  as  by  the  most  celebrated  men  of  letters. 
The  MSS.  being  mostly  decreed  genuine,  were  con- 
sidered to  be  of  inestimable  worth  ;  and  at  one  time  it 
was  expected  that  Parliament  would  give  any  required 
sum  for  them.  Some  conceited  amateurs  in  literature 
at  length  sounded  an  alarm,  which  was  echoed  by 
certain  of  the  newspapers  and  public  journals ;  not- 
withstanding which,  Mr.  Sheridan  agreed  to  give 
600Z.  for  permission  to  play  Vortigern  at  Drury-lane 
Theatre.  So  crowded  a  house  was  scarcely  ever  seen 
as  on  the  night  of  the  performance,  and  a  vast  number 
of  persons  could  not  obtain  admission.  The  pre- 
determined malcontents  began  an  opposition  from  the 
outset :  some  ill-cast  characters  converted  grave  scenes 
into  ridicule,  and  there  ensued  between  the  believers 
and  sceptics  a  contest  which  endangered  the  property. 
The  piece  was,  accordingly,  withdrawn. 

The  juvenile  author  was  now  so  beset  for  informa- 
tion, that  he  found  it  necessary  to  abscond  from  his 
father's  house ;  and  then,  to  put  an  end  to  the  wonder- 


IRELAND'S  FORGERIES.  85 

fal  ferment  which  his  ingenuity  had  created,  he  pub- 
lished a  pamphlet,  wherein  he  confessed  the  entire 
lubrication.  Besides  Vortigern,  young  Ireland  also 
produced  a  play  of  Henry  II. ;  and,  although  there 
were  in  both  such  incongruities  as  were  not  con- 
sistent with  Shakspeare's  age,  both  dramas  contain 
passages  of  considerable  beauty  and  originality. 

The  admissions  of  the  son  did  not,  however,  screen 
the  father  from  obloquy,  and  the  reaction  of  public 
opinion  affected  his  fortunes  and  his  health.  Mr. 
Ireland  was  the  dupe  of  his  zeal  upon  such  subjects ; 
and  the  son  never  contemplated  at  the  outset  the  un- 
fortunate effect.  Such  was  the  enthusiasm  of  certain 
admirers  of  Shakspeare,  (among  them  Drs.  Parr  and 
Warton,)  that  they  fell  upon  their  knees  before  the 
MSS. ;  and,  by  their  idolatry,  inspired  hundreds  of 
others  with  similar  enthusiasm.  The  young  author 
was  filled  with  astonishment  and  alarm,  which  at  that 
stage  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  check.  Sir  Richard 
Phillips,  who  knew  the  parties,  has  thus  related  the 
affair  in  the  Anecdote  Library. 

In  the  Catalogue  of  Dr.  Parr's  Library  at  Ilatton, 
(Bihliotheca  Parriana,)  we  find  the  following  at- 
tempted explanation  by  the  Doctor  : — 

"  Ireland's  (Samuel)  '  Great  and  impudent  forgery, 
called,'  Miscellaneous  Papers  and  Legal  Instruments, 
under  the  hand  and  seal  of  William  Shakspeare,  folio 
1796. 

"  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  insert  this  worthless  and 
infamously  trickish  book.  It  is  said  to  include  the 
tragedy  of  Kiiig  Lear,  and  a  fragment  of  Hamlet. 
Ireland  told  a  lie  when  he  imputed  to  me  the  words 


36  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

which  Joseph  Warton  used,  the  very  morning  I  called 
on  Ireland,  and  was  inclined  to  admit  the  possibility 
of  genuineness  in  his  papers.  In  my  subsequent  con- 
versation, I  told  him  my  change  of  opinion.  But  I 
thought  it  not  worth  while  to  dispute  in  print  with  a 
detected  impostor. — S.  P." 

Mr.  Ireland  died  about  1802.  His  son,  William 
Henry,  long  survived  him ;  but  the  forgeries  blighted 
his  literary  reputation  for  ever,  and  he  died  in  straitened 
circumstances,  about  the  year  1840.  The  reputed 
Shakspearean  MSS.  are  stated  to  have  been  seen  for 
sale  in  a  pawnbroker's  window  in  Wardour-street,  Soho. 


HOOLE,  THE  TRANSLATOR  OF  TASSO. 
THE  GHOST  PUZZLED. 

HooLE  was  born  in  a  hackney-coach,  which  was  con- 
veying his  mother  to  Drury-lane  Theatre,  to  witness 
the  performance  of  the  tragedy  of  Timanthes,  which 
had  been  written  by  her  husband.  Hoole  died  in  1839, 
at  a  very  advanced  age.  In  early  life,  he  ranked 
amongst  the  literary  characters  that  adorned  the  last 
century ;  and,  for  some  years  before  his  death,  had  out- 
lived most  of  the  persons  who  frequented  the  conver' 
sazioni  of  Dr.  Johnson.  By  the  will  of  the  Doctor, 
LIr.  Hoole  was  enabled  to  take  from  his  library  and 
effects  such  books  and  furniture  as  he  might  think 
proper  to  select,  by  way  of  memorial  of  that  great 
personage.    He  accordingly  chose  a  chair  in  which 


HOOLE.  87 

Dr.  Johnson  usually  sat,  and  the  desk  upon  which  he 
had  written  the  greater  number  of  the  papers  of  the 
Rambler ;  both  these  articles  Mr.  Hoole  used  constantly 
until  nearly  the  day  of  his  death. 

Hoole  was  near-sighted.  He  was  partial  to  the 
drama;  and,  when  young,  often  strutted  his  hour  at 
an  amateur  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  Upon 
one  occasion,  whilst  performing  the  ghost  in  Hamlet, 
Mr.  Hoole  wandered  incautiously  from  off  the  trap- 
door through  which  he  had  emerged  from  the  nether 
world,  and  by  which  it  was  his  duty  to  descend.  In 
this  dilemma  he  groped  about,  hoping  to  distinguish 
the  aperture,  keeping  the  audience  in  wonder  why  he 
remained  so  long  on  the  stage  after  the  crowing  of  the 
cock.  It  was  apparent  from  the  lips  of  the  ghost  that 
he  was  holding  converse  with  some  one  at  the  wings. 
He  at  length  became  irritated,  and  "  alas !  poor  ghost!" 
ejaculated,  in  tones  sufficiently  audible,  "  I  tell  you  1 
can't  find  it."  The  laughter  that  ensued  may  be  ima- 
gined. The  ghost,  had  he  been  a  sensible  one,  would 
have  walked  off;  but  no — he  became  more  and  more 
irritated,  until  the  perturbed  spirit  was  placed,  by  some 
of  the  bystanders,  on  the  trap-door,  after  which  it 
descended,  with  due  solemnity,  amid  roars  of  laughter. 


LORD    BYRON  S    VANITY 

During  the  residence  of  Lord  Byron  at  Venice,  a 
clerk  was  sent  from  the  office  of  Messrs.  Vizard  and 
Co.,  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  to  procure  his  lordship's  signa- 


88  BOOKS  AND  A  UTHORS. 

ture  to  a  legal  instrument.  On  his  arrival,  the  clerk 
sent  a  message  to  the  noble  poet,  who  appointed  to  re- 
ceive him  on  the  following  morning.  Each  party  was 
punctual  to  the  minute.  His  lordship  had  dressed 
himself  with  the  most  studious  care;  and,  on  the 
opening  of  the  door  of  his  apartment,  it  was  evident 
that  he  had  placed  himself  in  what  he  thought  a 
becoming  pose.  His  right  arm  was  displayed  over 
the  back  of  a  splendid  couch,  and  his  head  was  gently 
supported  by  the  fingers  of  his  left  hand.  He  bowed 
slightly  as  his  visitor  approached  him,  and  appeared 
anxious  that  his  recumbent  attitude  should  remain  for 
a  time  undisturbed.  After  the  signing  of  the  deed, 
the  noble  bard  made  a  few  inquiries  upon  the  politics 
of  England,  in  the  tone  of  a  finished  exquisite.  Some 
refreshment  which  was  brought  in  afforded  the  mes- 
senger an  opportunity  for  more  minute  observation. 
His  lordship's  hair  had  been  curled  and  parted  on  the 
forehead  ;  the  collar  of  his  shirt  was  thrown  back,  so 
that  not  only  the  throat  but  a  considerable  portion  of 
his  bosom  was  exposed  to  view,  though  partially  con- 
cealed by  some  fanciful  ornament  suspended  round  the 
neck.  His  waistcoat  was  of  costly  velvet,  and  his  legs 
were  enveloped  in  a  superb  wrapper.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  so  great  a  mind  as  that  of  Byron  could 
derive  satisfaction  from  things  so  trivial  and  unim- 
portant, but  much  more  that  it  was  liable  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  a  recollection  of  personal  imperfections.  In 
the  above  interview,  the  clerk  directed  an  accidental 
glance  at  his  lordship's  lame  foot,  when  the  smile  that 
had  played  upon  the  visage  of  the  poet  became  sud- 


BYRON.  39 

denly  converted  into  a  frown.  His  whole  frame  ap- 
peared discomposed ;  his  tone  of  affected  suavity  became 
hard  and  imperious ;  and  he  called  to  an  attendant  to 
open  the  door,  with  a  peevishness  seldom  exhibited 
even  by  the  most  irritable. 


LOED  BYRON  S  APOLOGY. 
No  one  knew  how  to  apologize  for  an  affront  with 
better  grace,  or  with  more  delicacy,  than  Lord 
Byron.  In  the  first  edition  of  the  first  canto  of  Childe 
Harold,  the  poet  adverted  in  a  note  to  two  political 
tracts — one  by  Major  Pasley,  and  the  other  by  Gould 
Francis  Leckie,  Esq, ;  and  concluded  his  remarks  by 
attributing  "  ignorance  on  the  one  hand,  and  prejudice 
on  the  other."  Mr.  Leckie,  who  felt  offended  at  the 
severity  and,  as  he  thought,  injustice  of  the  observa- 
tions, wrote  to  Lord  Byron,  complaining  of  the  affront. 
His  lordship  did  not  reply  immediately  to  the  letter  ; 
but,  in  about  three  weeks,  he  called  upon  Mr.  Leckie, 
and  begged  him  to  accept  an  elegantly-bound  copy  of 
a  new  edition  of  the  poem,  in  which  the  offensive  pas- 
sage was  omitted. 


FINE  FLOURISHES. 
Lord  BROuaHAM,  in  an  essay  published  long  ago  in 
the  Edinburgh  Review,  read  a  smart  lesson  to  Parlia- 
mentary wits.  "  A  wit,"  says  his  lordship,  "  though 
he  amuses  for  the  moment,  unavoidably  gives  frequent 
offence  to  grave  and  serious  men,  who  don't  think 
public  affairs  should  be  lightly  handled,  and  are  con- 


40  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

stantly  falling  into  the  error  that  when  a  person  is 
arguing  the  most  conclusively,  by  showing  the  gross 
and  ludicrous  absurdity  of  his  adversary's  reasoning, 
he  is  jesting,  and  not  arguing ;  while  the  argument  is, 
in  reality,  more  close  and  stringent,  the  more  he  shows 
the  opposite  picture  to  be  grossly  ludicrous — that  is, 
the  more  effective  the  wit  becomes.  But,  though  all 
this  is  perfectly  true,  it  is  equally  certain  that  danger 
attends  such  courses  with  the  common  run  of  plain 
men. 

"  Nor  is  it  only  by  wit  that  genius  offends  :  flowers 
of  imagination,  flights  of  oratory,  great  passages,  are 
more  admired  by  the  critic  than  relished  by  the  worthy 
baronets  who  darken  the  porch  of  Boodle's — chiefly 
answering  to  the  names  of  Sir  Robert  and  Sir  John — 
and  the  solid  traders,  the  very  good  men  who  stream 
along  the  Strand  from  'Change  towards  St.  Stephen's 
Chapel,  at  five  o'clock,  to  see  the  business  of  the 
country  done  by  the  Sovereign's  servants.  A  pretty 
long  course  of  observation  on  these  component  parts  of 
a  Parliamentary  audience  begets  some  doubt  if  noble 
passages,  (termed  '  fine  flourishes,')  be  not  taken  by 
them  as  personally  offensive." 

Take,  for  example,  "  such  fine  passages  as  Mr.  Can- 
ning often  indulged  himself  and  a  few  of  his  hearers 
with ;  and  which  certainly  seemed  to  be  received  as 
an  insult  by  whole  benches  of  men  accustomed  to  dis- 
tribute justice  at  sessions.  These  worthies,  the  dig- 
nitaries of  the  empire,  resent  such  flights  as  liberties 
taken  with  them  ;  and  always  say,  when  others  force 
tbem  to  praise — '  Well,  well,  but  it  was  out  of  place ; 


MATHEMATICAL  SAILORS.  41 

we  have  nothing  to  do  with  king  Priam  here,  or 
with  a  heathen  god,  such  as  ^olus ;  those  kind  of 
folk  are  all  very  well  in  Pope's  Homer  and  Dryden's 
Virgil ;  but,  as  I  said  to  Sir  Robert,  who  sat  next  me, 
what  have  you  or  I  to  do  with  them  matters  ?  I  like 
a  good  plain  man  of  business,  like  young  Mr.  Jenkin- 
son — a  man  of  the  pen  and  desk,  like  his  father  was 
before  him — and  who  never  speaks  when  he  is  not 
wanted:  let  me  tell  you,  Mr.  Canning  speaks  too 
much  by  half.  Time  is  short — there  are  only  twenty 
four  hours  in  the  day,  you  know." 


MATHEMATICAL    SAILOES. 

Nathaniel  Bowditch,  the  translator  of  Laplace's 
Mecanique  Celeste,  displayed  in  very  early  life  a  taste 
for  mathematical  studies.  In  the  year  1788,  when  he 
was  only  fifteen  years  old,  he  actually  made  an  almanack 
for  the  year  1790,  containing  all  the  usual  tables, 
calculations  of  the  eclipses,  and  other  phenomena,  and 
even  the  customary  predictions  of  the  weather. 

Bowditch  was  bred  to  the  sea,  and  in  his  early 
voyages  taught  navigation  to  the  common  sailors  about 
him.  Captain  Prince,  with  whom  he  often  sailed, 
relates,  that  one  day  the  supercargo  of  the  vessel  said 
to  him,  "  Come,  Captain,  let  us  go  forward  and  hear 
what  the  sailors  are  talking  about  under  the  lee  of  the 
long-boat."  They  went  forward  accordingly,  and  the 
captain  was  surprised  to  find  the  sailors,  instead  of 
spinning  their  long  yarns,  earnestly  engaged  with 
book,  slate,  and  pencil,  discussing  the  high  matters  of 


42  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

tangents  and  secants,  altitudes,  dip,  and  refraction. 
Two  of  them,  in  particular,  were  very  zealously  dis- 
puting,— one  of  them  calling  out  to  the  other,  "  Well, 
Jack,  what  have  you  got ?"  " I've  got  the  sine"  was 
the  answer.  "  But  that  ain't  right,"  said  the  other ; 
"  I  say  it  is  the  cosine" 


LEWIS  S  "MONK. 
This  romance,  on  its  first  appearance,  roused  the  atten- 
tion of  all  the  literary  world  of  England,  and  even 
spread  its  writer's  name  to  the  continent.  The  author 
— "  wonder-working  Lewis,"  was  a  stripling  under 
twenty  when  he  wrote  The  Monk  in  the  short  space 
of  ten  weeks  !  Sir  Walter  Scott,  probably  the  most 
rapid  composer  of  fiction  upon  record,  hardly  exceeded 
this,  even  in  his  latter  days,  when  his  facility  of 
writing  was  the  greatest. 


THOMSON'S  RECITATIONS. 
Thomson,  the  author  of  the  "  Seasons,"  was  a  very 
awkward  reader  of  his  own  productions.  His  patron, 
Doddington,  once  snatched  a  MS.  from  his  hand, 
provoked  by  his  odd  utterance,  telling  him  that  he  did 
not  understand  his  own  verses!  A  gentleman  of 
Brentford,  however,  told  the  late  Dr.  Evans,  in  1824, 
that  there  was  a  tradition  in  that  town  of  Thomson 
frequenting  one  of  the  inns  there,  and  reciting  his 
poems  to  the  company. 


"  SHE  STOOPS  TO  CONQ  UER."  43 

goldsmith's  "  SHE  STOOPS  TO  CONQUER.'' 
Goldsmith,  during  the  first  performance  of  this 
comedy,  walked  all  the  time  in  St.  James'  Park  in 
great  uneasiness.  Finally,  when  he  thought  that  it 
must  be  over,  hastening  to  the  theatre,  hisses  assailed 
his  ears  as  he  entered  the  green-room.  Asking  in 
eager  alarm  of  Colman  the  cause — "  Pshaw,  pshaw  ! " 
said  Colman,  "  don't  be  afraid  of  squibs,  when  we 
have  been  sitting  on  a  barrel  of  gunpowder  for  two 
hours."  The  comedy  had  completely  triumphed — 
the  audience  were  only  hissing  the  after  farce.  Gold- 
smith had  some  difficulty  in  getting  the  piece  on  the 
stage,  as  appears  from  the  following  letter  to  Col- 
man : — "  I  entreat  you'll  relieve  me  from  that  state  of 
suspense  in  which  I  have  been  kept  for  a  long  time. 
Whatever  objections  you  have  made,  or  shall  make,  to 
my  play,  I  will  endeavour  to  remove,  and  not  argue 
about  them.  To  bring  in  any  new  judges  either  of  its 
merits  or  faults,  I  can  never  submit  to.  Upon  a  former 
occasion,  when  my  other  play  was  before  Mr.  Garrick, 
he  offered  to  bring  me  before  Mr.  Whitehead's  tribunal, 
but  I  refused  the  proposal  with  indignation.  I  hope 
I  shall  not  experience  as  hard  treatment  from  you,  as 
from  him.  I  have,  as  you  know,  a  large  sum  of  money 
to  make  up  shortly ;  by  accepting  my  play,  I  can 
readily  satisfy  my  creditor  that  way  ;  at  any  rate,  I 
must  look  about  to  some  certainty  to  be  prepared, 
For  God's  sake  take  the  play,  and  let  us  make  the 
best  of  it ;  and  let  me  have  the  same  measure  at 
least  which  you  have  given  as  bad  plays  as  mine." 


ii  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS, 

SILENCE  NOT  ALWAYS  WISDOM. 
Coi^RiDGE  once  dined  in  company  with  a  person  who 
listened  to  him,  and  said  nothing  for  a  long  time ;  but 
he  nodded  his  head,  and  Coleridge  thought  him  intel- 
ligent. At  length,  towards  the  end  of  the  dinner, 
some  apple  dumplings  were  placed  on  the  table,  and 
the  listener  had  no  sooner  seen  them  than  he  burst 
forth,  "Them's  the  jockeys  for  me  !"  Coleridge  adds: 
"  I  wish  Spurzheim  could  have  examined  th*  Mlow's 
head." 

Coleridge  was  very  luminous  in  conversation,  and 
invariably  commanded  listeners  ;  yet  the  old  lady 
rated  his  talent  very  lowly,  when  she  declared  she  had 
no  patience  with  a  man  who  would  have  all  the  talk  to 
himself. 

DR.    CHALMERS   IN   LONDON. 

"When  Dr.  Chalmers  first  visited  London,  the  hold 
that  he  took  on  the  minds  of  men  was  unprecedented. 
It  was  a  time  of  strong  political  feeling ;  but  even  that 
was  unheeded,  and  all  parties  thronged  to  hear  the 
Scottish  preacher.  The  very  best  judges  were  not 
prepared  for  the  display  that  they  heard.  Canning 
and  Wilberforce  went  together,  and  got  into  a  pew 
near  the  door.  The  elder  in  attendance  stood  alone 
by  the  pew.  Chalmers  began  in  his  usual  unpromising 
way,  by  stating  a  few  nearly  self-evident  propositions, 
neither  in  the  choicest  language,  nor  in  the  most  im- 
pressive voice.  "  If  this  be  all,"  said  Canning  to  his 
companion,  "  it  will  never  do."  Chalmers  went  on— the 


ROMILLY  AND  BROUGHAM.  45 

shuffling  of  the  conversation  gradually  subsided.  He 
got  into  the  mass  of  his  subject ;  his  weakness  became 
strength,  his  hesitation  was  turned  into  energy ;  and, 
bringing  the  whole  volume  of  his  mind  to  bear  upon 
it,  he  poured  forth  a  torrent  of  the  most  close  and 
conclusive  argument,  brilliant  with  all  the  exuberance 
of  an  imagination  which  ranged  over  all  nature  for 
illustrations,  and  yet  managed  and  applied  each  of 
them  with  the  same  unerring  dexterity,  as  if  that  single 
one  had  been  the  study  of  a  whole  life.  "  The  tartan 
beats  us,"  said  Mr.  Canning ;  "  we  have  no  preaching 
like  that  in  England." 


EOMILLY   AND    BEOUGHAM. 

Hallam's  History  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  last 
book  of  any  importance  read  by  Sir  Samuel  Romilly. 
Of  this  excellent  work  he  formed  the  highest  opinion, 
and  recommended  its  immediate  perusal  to  Lord 
Brougham,  as  a  contrast  to  his  dry  Letter  on  the 
Abuses  of  Charities,  in  respect  of  the  universal  interest 
of  the  subject.  Yet,  Sir  Samuel  undervalued  the 
Letter,  for  it  ran  through  eight  editions  in  one  month. 


PHYSIOGNOMY  OF   THE   PEENCH  EEVOLU- 
TIONISTS. 

It  is  remarkable,  (says  Bulwer,  in  his  Zanoni^  that 
most  of  the  principal  actors  of  the  French  Revolution 
were  singularly  hideous  in  appearance  —  from  the 
colossal  ugliness  of  Mirabeau  and  Danton,  or  the  vil- 


46  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

lanous  ferocity  in  the  countenances  of  David  and 
Simon,  to  the  filthy  squalor  of  Marat,  and  the  sinister 
and  bilious  meanness  of  the  Dictator's  features.  But 
Robespierre,  who  was  said  to  resemble  a  cat,  and  had 
also  a  cat's  cleanliness?,  was  prim  and  dainty  in  dress, 
shaven  smoothness,  and  the  womanly  whiteness  of  his 
hands.  Rene  Dumas,  born  of  reputable  parents,  and 
well  educated,  despite  his  ferocity,  was  not  without  a 
certain  refinement,  which  perhaps  rendered  him  the 
more  acceptable  to  the  precise  Robespierre.  Dumas 
was  a  beau  in  his  way :  his  gala-dress  was  a  blood-red 
coat,  with  the  finest  ruffles.  But  Henriot  had  been  a 
lacquey,  a  thief,  a  spy  of  the  police  ;  he  had  drank  the 
blood  of  Madame  de  Lamballe,  and  had  risen  for  no 
quality  but  his  ruffianism ;  and  Fouquier  Tinville, 
the  son  of  a  provincial  agriculturist,  and  afterwards  a 
clerk  at  the  bureau  of  the  police,  was  little  less  base  in 
his  manners,  and  yet  more,  from  a  certain  loathsome 
buffoonery,  revolting  in  his  speech  ;  bull -headed,  with 
black,  sleek  hair,  with  a  narrow  and  livid  forehead, 
and  small  eyes  that  twinkled  with  sinister  malice; 
strongly  and  coarsely  built,  he  looked  what  he  was, 
the  audacious  bully  of  a  lawless  End  relentless  bar. 


DEATH  OF  SIR  CHAELES  BELL. 
This  distinguished  surgeon  died  suddenly  on  April  29, 
1842,  at  Hallow  Park,  near  Worcester,  while  on  his 
way  to  ]\Ialvern.  He  was  out  sketching  on  the  28th, 
being  particularly  pleased  with  the  village  church,  and 
some  fine  trees  which  are  beside  it ;  observing  that  he 


POETRY  OF  THE  SEA.  47 

should  like  to  repose  there  when  he  was  gone.  Just 
four  days  after  this  sentiment  had  been  expressed,  his 
mortal  remains  were  accordingly  deposited  beside  the 
rustic  graves  which  had  attracted  his  notice,  and  so 
recently  occupied  his  pencil.  There  is  a  painful  ad- 
monition in  this  fulfilment. 


CLASSIC  PUN. 
It  was  suggested  to  a  distinguished  gourmet,  what  a 
capital  thing  a  dish  all  fins  (turbot's  fins)  might  be 
made.  "  Capital,"  said  he  ;  "  dine  with  me  on  it  to- 
morrow." "  Accepted."  Would  you  believe  it  ?  when 
the  cover  was  removed,  the  sacrilegious  dog  of  an 
Amphytrion  had  put  into  the  dish  "  Cicero  De finibus" 
"  There  is  a  work  all  fins,"  said  he. 


POETRY  OF  THE  SEA. 
Campbell  was  a  great  lover  of  submarine  prospects. 
*'  Often  in  my  boyhood,"  says  the  poet,  "  when  the 
day  has  been  bright  and  the  sea  transparent,  I  have 
sat  by  the  hour  on  a  Highland  rock  admiring  the 
golden  sands,  the  emerald  weeds,  and  the  silver  shells 
at  the  bottom  of  the  bay  beneath,  till,  dreaming  about 
the  grottoes  of  the  Nereids,  I  would  not  have  ex- 
changed my  pleasure  for  that  of  a  connoisseur  poring 
over  a  landscape  by  Claude  or  Poussin.  Enchanting 
nature  !  thy  beauty  is  not  only  in  heaven  and  earth,  but 
in  the  waters  under  our  feet.  How  magnificent  a  me- 
dium of  vision  is  the  pellucid  sea !  Is  it  not  like  poetry, 
that  embellishes  every  object  that  we  contemplate  ?" 


48  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

"FELON   LITERATDEE." 
One  of  the  most  stinging  reproofs  of  perverted  literarj 
taste,  evidently  aimed  at  Newgate  Calendqj:  litera- 
ture, appeared  in  the  form  of  a  valentine,   in  No. 
31  of  Punch,  in  1842. 

The  valentine  itself  reminds  one  of  Churchill's  muse ; 
and  it  needs  no  finger  to  tell  where  its  withering  satire 
is  pointed : — 

"the  liteeart  gentlejiak. 

*•  Illustrious  scribe  1  whose  vivid  genius  strays 
'Mid  Drury's  stews  to  incubate  her  lays. 
And  in  St.  Giles's  slang  conveys  her  tropes, 
Wreathing  the  poet's  lines  with  hangmen's  ropes  $ 
You  who  conceive  'tis  poetry  to  teach 
The  sad  bravado  of  a  dying  speech ; 
Or,  when  possessed  with  a  sublimer  mood. 
Show  "  Jack  o'Dandies"  dancing  upon  blood ! 
Crush  bones — ^bruise  flesh,  recount  each  festering  sore — 
Eake  up  the  plague-pit,  write — and  write  in  gore  ! 
Or,  when  inspired  to  humanize  mankind. 
Where  doth  your  soaring  soul  its  subjects  find  ? 
Kot  'mid  the  scenes  that  simple  Goldsmith  sought. 
And  found  a  theme  to  elevate  his  thought ; 
But  you,  great  scribe,  more  greedy  of  renown, 
From  Hounslow's  gibbet  drag  a  hero  do\vn. 
Imbue  liis  mind  with  virtue  ;  make  him  quote 
Some  moral  truth  before  he  cuts  a  throat. 
Then  wash  his  hands,  and  soaring  o'er  your  craft — 
Refresh  the  hero  with  a  bloody  draught : 
And,  fearing  lest  the  world  should  miss  the  act. 
With  noble  zeal  italicize  the  fact. 
Or  would  you  picture  woman  meek  and  pure, 
By  love  and  virtue  tutor'd  to  endure. 
With  cunning  skill  you  take  a  felon's  trull. 
Stuff  her  with  sentiment,  and  scrunch  her  skull  I 
Oh !  would  your  crashing,  smashing,  mashing  pen  wefe  mine. 
That  I  could  "  scorch  your  eyeballs"  with  my  words, 

"Mr  Valentime." 


ORIGIN  OF  BOTTLED  ALE.  49 

DEATH  BED  KEVELATIONS. 
Men  before  they  die  see  and  comprehend  enigmas 
hidden  from  them  before.  The  greatest  poet,  and  one 
of  the  noblest  thinkers  of  the  last  age,  said  on  his  death- 
bed : — "  Many  things  obscure  to  me  before,  now  clear 
up  and  become  visible." 


STAMMERING  WIT. 
Stammering,  (says  Coleridge,)  is  sometimes  the  cause 
of  a  pun.  Some  one  was  mentioning  in  Lamb's  pre- 
sence the  cold-heartedness  of  the  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land, in  restraining  the  duchess  from  rushing  up  to  the 
embrace  of  her  son,  whom  she  had  not  seen  for  a  con- 
siderable time,  and  insisting  on  her  receiving  him  in 
state.  "  How  horribly  cold  it  was,"  said  the  narrator. 
"  Yes,"  said  Lamb,  in  his  stuttering  way  ;  "  but  you 
know  he  is  the  Duke  of  Cu-cum-ber-land.^ 


ORIGIN  OF  BOTTLED  ALE. 
Alexander  Newell,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  and  Master 
of  Westminster  School,  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary, 
was  an  excellent  angler.  But  Fuller  saj's,  while  Newell 
was  catching  of  fishes.  Bishop  Bonner  was  catching  of 
Newell,  and  would  certainly  have  sent  him  to  the 
shambles,  had  not  a  good  London  merchant  conveyed 
him  away  upon  the  seas.  Newell  was  fishing  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Thames  when  he  received  the  first 
intimation  of  his  danger,  which  was  so  pressing,  that 
he  dared  not  go  back  to  his  own  house  to  make  any 

D 


50  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

preparation  for  his  flight.  Like  aii  honest  angler,  he 
had  taken  with  him  provisions  for  the  day  ;  and  when, 
in  the  first  year  of  England's  deliverance,  he  returned 
to  his  country,  and  to  his  own  haunts,  he  remembered 
that  on  the  day  of  his  flight  he  had  left  a  bottle  of  beer 
in  a  safe  place  on  the  bank :  there  he  looked  for  it, 
and  "  found  it  no  bottle,  but  a  gun — such  the  sound  at 
the  opening  thereof;  and  this  (says  Fuller)  is  believed 
(casualty  is  mother  of  more  invention  than  industry) 
to  be  the  original  of  bottled  ale  in  England." 


BAD  S   THE    BEST. 

Canning  was  once  asked  by  an  English  clergyman,  nt 
whose  parsonage  he  was  visiting,  how  he  liked  the 
sermon  he  had  preached  that  morning.  "Why,  it 
was  a  short  sermon,"  quoth  Canning.  "O  yes," 
said  the  preacher,  "  you  know  I  avoid  being  tedious. 
"  Ah,  but,"  replied  Canning,  "  you  were  tedious." 


LUDICROUS  ESTIMATE  OF  MR.  CANNING. 
The  Rev.  Sydney  Smith  compares  Mr.  Canning  in 
office  to  a  fly  in  amber  :  "  nobody  cares  about  the  fly  : 
the  only  question  is,  how  the  devil  did  it  get  there  ?" 
"  Nor  do  I,"  continues  Smith,  "  attack  him  for  the 
love  of  glory,  but  from  the  love  of  utility,  as  a  burgo- 
master hunts  a  rat  in  a  Dutch  dyke,  for  fear  it  should 
flood  a  province.  When  he  is  jocular,  he  is  strong ; 
when  he  is  serious,  he  is  like  Samson  in  a  wig.  Call 
him  a  legislator,  a  reasoner,  and  the  conductor  of  the 


QUID  PRO  QUO.  51 

affairs  of  a  great  nation,  and  it  seems  to  me  as  absurd 
as  if  a  butterfly  were  to  teach  bees  to  make  honey. 
That  he  was  an  extraordinary  writer  of  small  poetry, 
and  a  diner-out  of  the  highest  lustre,  I  do  most  readily 
admit.  After  George  Selwyn,  and  perhaps  Tickell, 
there  has  been  no  such  man  for  the  last  half-century." 


THE  AUTHORSHIP  OF  "  WAVERLEY. 
Mrs.  Mukray  Keith,  a  venerable  Scotch  lady,  from 
whom  Sir  Walter  Scott  derived  many  of  the  tradition- 
ary stories  and  anecdotes  wrought  up  in  his  novels, 
taxed  him  one  day  with  the  authorship,  which  he,  as 
usual,  stoutly  denied.  "What!"  exclaimed  the  old 
lady,  "  d'ye  think  I  dinna  ken  my  ain  groats  among 
other  folk's  kail  ?" 


QUID  PRO  QUO. 
Campbell  relates  : — "  Turner,  the  painter,  is  a  ready 
wit.  Once  at  a  dinner  where  several  artists,  amateurs, 
and  literary  men  were  convened,  a  poet,  by  way  of 
being  facetious,  proposed  as  a  toast  the  health  of  the 
painters  and  glaziers  of  Great  Britain.  The  toast 
was  drunk ;  and  Turner,  after  returning  thanks  for  it, 
proposed  the  health  of  the  British  paper-stainers." 


HOPE  S    "  ANASTASIUS. 
Lord  Btron,  in  a  conversation  with  the  Countess  of 
Blessington,  said  that  he  wept  bitterly  over  many  pages 
oi  Anastasius,  and  for  two  reasons  :  first,  that  he  had 


52  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

not  written  it ;  and  secondly,  that  Hope  had ;  for  it 
was  necessary  to  like  a  man  excessively  to  pardon  his 
writing  such  a  book  ;  as,  he  said,  excelling  all  recent 
productions,  as  much  in  wit  and  talent  as  in  true 
pathos.  Lord  Byron  added,  that  he  would  have  given 
his  two  most  approved  poems  to  have  been  the  author 
of  Anastasius, 


SMART  REPARTEE. 
Walpole  relates,  after  an  execution  of  eighteen  male- 
factors, a  woman  was  hawking  an  account  of  them, 
but  called  them  nineteen.  A  gentleman  said  to  her, 
"  Why  do  you  say  nineteen  ?  there  were  but  eighteen 
hanged."  She  replied,  "  Sir,  I  did  not  know  you  had 
been  reprieved." 


colton's  "LACON." 
This  remarkable  book  was  written  upon  covers  of 
letters  and  scraps  of  paper  of  such  description  as  was 
nearest  at  hand;  the  greater  part  at  a  house  in 
Princes-street,  Soho.  Colton's  lodging  was  a  penu- 
riously-furnished  second-floor,  and  upon  a  rough 
deal  table,  with  a  stumpy  pen,  our  author  wrote. 

Though  a  beneficed  clergyman,  holding  the  vicarage 
of  Kew,  with  Petersham,  in  Surrey,  Colton  was  a  well- 
known  frequenter  of  the  gaming-table ;  and,  suddenly 
disappearing  from  his  usual  haunts  in  London  about 
the  time  of  the  murder  of  Weare,  in  1823,  it  was 
strongly  suspected  he  had  been  assassinated.  It  was, 
however,  afterwards  ascertained  that  he  had  absconded 


BUNYAN.  53 

to  avoid  his  creditors;  and  in  1828  a  successor  was 
appointed  to  his  living.  He  then  went  to  reside  in 
America,  but  subsequently  lived  in  Paris,  a  professed 
gamester ;  and  it  is  said  that  he  thus  gained,  in  two 
years  only,  the  sum  of  25,000Z.  He  blew  out  his 
brains  while  on  a  visit  to  a  friend  at  Fontainebleau,  in 
1832  ;  bankrupt  in  health,  spirits,  and  fortune. 


BUNYAN'S  copy   of    "  THE  BOOK  OF  MARTYRS  ' 

There  is  no  book,  except  the  Bible,  which  Bunyan  is 
known  to  have  perused  so  intently  as  the  Acts  and 
Monuments  of  John  Fox,  the  martyrologist,  one  of  the 
best  of  men ;  a  work  more  hastily  than  judiciously 
compiled,  but  invaluable  for  that  greater  and  far  more 
important  portion  which  has  obtained  for  it  its  popular 
name  of  The  Sook  of  Martyrs,  Bunyan's  own  copy 
of  this  work  is  in  existence,  and  valued  of  course  as 
such  a  relic  of  such  a  man  ought  to  be.  It  was  pur- 
chased in  the  year  1780,  by  Mr.  Wantner,  of  the 
Minories ;  from  him  it  descended  to  his  daughter, 
Mrs.  Parnell,  of  Botolph-lane ;  and  it  was  afterwards 
purchased,  by  subscription,  for  the  Bedfordshire  Gene- 
ral Library. 

This  edition  of  TTie  Acts  and  Monuments  is  of  the 
date  1641,  3  vols,  folio,  the  last  of  those  in  the  black- 
letter,  and  probably  the  latest  when  it  came  into 
Bunyan's  hands.  In  each  volume  he  has  written  his 
name  beneath  the  title-page,  in  a  large  and  stout  print- 
hand.  Under  some  of  the  woodcuts  he  has  inserted 
a  few  rhymes,  which  are  undoubtedly  his  own  compo- 


54  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

sition  ;  and  which,  though  much  in  the  manner  of  the 
verses  that  were  printed  under  the  illustrations  of  his 
own  Pilgrim's  Progress,  when  that  work  was  first 
adorned  with  cuts,  (verses  worthy  of  such  embellish- 
ments,) are  very  much  worse  than  even  the  worst  of 
those.  Indeed,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  find  speci- 
mens of  more  miserable  doggerel. 

Here  is  one  of  the  Tinker's  tetrasticks,  penned  in 
the  margin,  beside  the  account  of  Gardiner's  death  : — 

"  The  blood,  the  blood  that  he  did  shed 
Is  falling  one  his  one  head ; 
And  dredfull  it  is  for  to  see 
The  beginers  of  his  misere." 

One  of  the  signatures  bears  the  date  of  1662  ;  but  the 
verses  must  undoubtedly  have  been  some  years  earlier, 
before  the  publication  of  his  first  tract.  These  curious 
inscriptions  must  have  been  Bunyan's  first  attempts  in 
verse:  he  had,  no  doubt,  found  difficulty  enough  in 
tinkering  them  to  make  him  proud  of  his  work  when 
it  was  done ;  otherwise,  he  would  not  have  written 
them  in  a  book  which  was  the  most  valuable  of  all  his 
goods  and  chattels.  In  later  days,  he  seems  to  have 
taken  this  book  for  his  art  of  poetry.  His  verses  are 
something  below  the  pitch  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins. 
But  if  he  learnt  there  to  make  bad  verses,  he  entered 
fully  into  the  spirit  of  its  better  parts,  and  received  that 
spirit  into  as  resolute  a  heart  as  ever  beat  in  a  martyr's 
bosom.* 

•  Souther's  Life  of  John  Banyan. 


LORD  BOLINGBROKE.  55 

LITERARY   LOCALITIES. 

Leigh  Hunt  pleasantly  says : — "  I  can  no  more  pass 
through  Westminster,  without  thinking  of  Milton; 
or  the  Borough,  without  thinking  of  Chaucer  and 
Shakspeare ;  or  Gray's  Inn,  without  calling  Bacon  to 
mind;  or  Bloomshury- square,  without  Steele  and 
Akenside  ;  than  I  can  prefer  brick  and  mortar  to  wit 
and  poetry,  or  not  see  a  beauty  upon  it  beyond  archi- 
tecture in  the  splendour  of  the  recollection.  I  once 
had  duties  to  perform  which  kept  me  out  late  at  night, 
and  severely  taxed  my  health  and  spirits.  My  path 
lay  through  a  neighbourhood  in  which  Dryden  lived, 
and  though  nothing  could  be  more  common-place,  and 
I  used  to  be  tired  to  the  heart  and  soul  of  me,  I  never 
hesitated  to  go  a  little  out  of  the  way,  purely  that  I 
might  pass  through  Gerard-street,  and  so  give  myself 
the  shadow  of  a  pleasant  thought." 


CREED  OF  LORD  BOLINGBROKE. 
Lord  Bkougham  says  : — "  The  dreadful  malady  under 
which  Bolingbroke  long  lingered,  and  at  length  sunk 
— a  cancer  in  the  face — he  bore  with  exemplary  forti- 
tude, a  fortitude  drawn  from  the  natural  resources  of 
his  vigorous  mind,  and  unhappily  not  aided  by  the 
consolations  of  any  religion ;  for,  having  early  cast  off 
the  belief  in  revelation,  he  had  substituted  in  its  stead 
a  dark  and  gloomy  naturalism,  which  even  rejected 
those  glimmerings  of  hope  as  to  futurity  not  untasted 
by  the  wiser  of  the  heathens," 


56  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Lord  Chesterfield,  in  one  of  his  letters,  which  hasbeen 
published  by  Earl  Stanhope,  says  that  Bolingbroke 
only  doubted,  and  by  no  means  rejected,  a  future  state. 


BUNYANS  PREACHING, 
It  is  said  that  Owen,  the  divine,  greatly  admired  Bun- 
yan's  preaching ;  and  that,  being  asked  by  Charles  11. 
"  how  a  learned  man  such  as  he  could  sit  and  listen  to 
an  itinerant  tinker  ?"  he  replied :  "  May  it  please 
your  Majesty,  could  I  possess  that  tinker's  abilities 
for  preaching,  I  would  most  gladly  relinquish  all  my 
learning." 


hone's  "  EVERY-DAY  BOOK.' 
This  popular  work  was  commenced  by  its  author  after 
he  had  renounced  political  satire  for  the  more  peaceful 
study  of  the  antiquities  of  our  country.  The  publica- 
tion was  issued  in  weekly  sheets,  and  extended  through 
two  years,  1824  and  1825.  It  was  very  successful, 
the  weekly  sale  being  from  20,000  to  30,000  copies. 

In  1830,  LIr.  Southey  gave  the  following  tribute  to 
the  merits  of  the  work,  which  it  is  pleasurable  to  record ; 
as  these  two  writers,  from  their  antipodean  politics, 
had  not  been  accustomed  to  regard  each  other's  pro- 
ductions with  any  favour.  In  closing  his  Life  of  John 
Bunyan,  Mr.  Southey  says  : — 

"In  one  of  the  volumes,  collected  from  various  quar- 
ters, which  were  sent  to  me  for  this  purpose,  I  observe 
the  name  of  William  Hone,  and  notice  it  that  I  may 
take  the  opportunity  of  recommending  his  Every -day 


BUNYAN'S  ESCAPES.  57 

Sook  and  Table  Book  to  those  who  are  interested  in 
the  preservation  of  our  national  and  local  customs. 
By  these  curious  publications,  their  compiler  has  ren- 
dered good  service  in  an  important  department  of 
literature ;  and  he  may  render  yet  more,  if  he  obtain 
the  encouragement  which  he  well  deserves." 


BUNYAN  S  ESCAPES. 
BuNfAN  had  some  providential  escapes  during  his 
early  life.  Once,  he  fell  into  a  creek  of  the  sea, 
once  out  of  a  boat  into  the  river  Ouse,  near  Bedford, 
and  each  time  he  was  narrowly  saved  from  drown- 
ing. One  day,  an  adder  crossed  his  path.  He  stunned 
it  with  a  stick,  then  forced  open  its  mouth  with 
a  stick  and  plucked  out  the  tongue,  which  he  sup- 
posed to  be  the  sting,  with  his  fingers ;  "  by  which 
act,"  he  says,  "had  not  God  been  merciful  unto 
me,  I  might,  by  my  desperateness,  have  brought 
myself  to  an  end."  If  this,  indeed,  were  an  adder, 
and  not  a  harmless  snake,  his  escape  from  the  fangs 
was  more  remarkable  than  he  himself  was  aware  of. 
A  circumstance,  which  was  likely  to  impress  him 
more  deeply,  occurred  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  his 
age,  when,  being  a  soldier  in  the  Parliament's  army, 
he  was  drawn  out  to  go  to  the  siege  of  Leicester,  in 
1645.  One  of  the  same  company  wished  to  go  in 
his  stead ;  Bunyan  consented  to  exchange  with  him, 
and  this  volunteer  substitute,  standing  sentinel  one 
day  at  the  siege,  was  shot  through  the  head  with  a 
musket-ball.     "  This  risk,"  Sir  Walter  Scott  observes, 


58  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

"  was  one  somewhat  resembling  the  escape  of  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley,  in  an  action  at  Worcester,  who 
was  saved  from  the  slaughter  of  that  action,  by  having 
been  absent  from  the  field." — Southey. 


DROLLERY    SPONTANEOUS. 

MoEB  drolleries  are  uttered  unintentionally  than  by 
premeditation.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  being  "  droll 
to  order."     One  evening  a  lady  said  to  a  small  wit, 

"  Come,  IMr. ,  tell  us  a  lively  anecdote ;"  and  the 

poor  fellow  was  mute  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

"Favour  me  with  your  company  on  Wednesday 
evening — you  are  such  a  lion,"  said  a  weak  party-giver 
to  a  young  litteratevr.  "I  thank  you,"  replied  the 
wit,  "  but,  on  that  evening  I  am  engaged  to  eat  fire  at 

the  Countess  of ,  and  stand  upon  my  head  at 

Mrs. ." 


ORIGIN  OF  COWPERS  "JOHN  GILPIN. 
It  happened  one  afternoon,  in  those  years  when  Cow- 
per's  accomplished  friend,  Lady  Austen,  made  a  part  of 
his  little  evening  circle,  that  she  observed  him  sinking 
into  increased  dejection ;  it  was  her  custom,  on  these 
occasions,  to  try  all  the  resources  of  her  sprightly 
powers  for  his  immediate  relief.  She  told  him  the 
story  of  John  Gilpin,  (which  had  been  treasured  in 
her  memory  from  her  childhood),  to  dissipate  the 
gloom  of  the  passing  hour.  Its  effects  on  the  fancy 
of  Cowper  had  the  air  of  enchantment.    He  informed 


HARD  FATE  OF  AUTHORS.  5b 

her  the  next  morning  that  convulsions  of  laughter, 
brought  on  by  his  recollection  of  her  story,  had  kept 
him  waking  during  the  greatest  part  of  the  night! 
and  that  he  had  turned  it  into  a  ballad.  So  arose  the 
pleasant  poem  of  John  Gilpin.  To  Lady  Austen's 
suggestion,  also,  we  are  indebted  for  the  poem  of  "  the 
Task." 


HARD  FATE  OF  AUTHORS. 

Sib  E.  B.  (now  Lord)  Lytton,  in  the  memoir  which  he 
prefixed  to  the  collected  works  of  Laman  Blanchard, 
draws  the  following  affecting  picture  of  that  author's 
position,  after  he  had  parted  from  an  engagement  upon 
a  popular  newspaper : — 

"  For  the  author  there  is  nothing  but  his  pen,  till  that  and  life 
are  worn  to  the  stump :  and  then,  with  good  fortune,  perhaps 
on  his  death-bed  he  receives  a  pension — and  equals,  it  may  be, 
for  a  few  months,  the  income  of  a  retired  butler !  And,  so  on 
the  sudden  loss  of  the  situation  in  which  he  had  frittered  away 
his  higher  and  more  delicate  genius,  in  all  the  drudgery  that  a 
party  exacts  from  its  defender  of  the  press,  Laman  Blanchard 
was  thrown  again  upon  the  world,  to  shift  as  he  might  and  sub- 
sist as  he  could.  His  practice  in  periodical  writing  was  now 
considerable ;  his  versatility  was  extreme.  He  was  marked  by 
publishers  and  editors  as  a  useful  contributor,  and  so  his  liveli- 
hood was  secure.  From  a  variety  of  sources  thus  he  contrived, 
by  constant  waste  of  intellect  and  strength,  to  eke  out  his  in- 
come, and  insinuate  rather  than  force  his  place  among  his  con- 
temporary penmen.  And  uncomplainingly,  and  with  patient 
industry,  he  toiled  on,  seeming  farther  and  farther  off  from  the 
happy  leisure,  in  which  '  the  something  to  verify  promise  was  to 
be  completed.'  No  time  had  he  for  profound  reading,  for 
'engthened  works,  for  the  mature  development  of  the  concep- 
tions of  a  charming  fancy.  He  had  given  hostages  to  fortune. 
He  had  a  wife  and  four  children,  and  no  income  but  that  which 
he  made  from  week  to  week.  The  grist  must  be  ground,  and 
the  wheel  revolve.    All  the  struggle,  all  the  toils,  all  the  weari- 


60  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

ness  of  brain,  nerve,  and  head,  which  a  man  undergoes  in  hit 
career,  are  imperceptible  even  to  his  friends — almost  to  himself; 
he  has  no  time  to  be  ill,  to  be  fatigued ;  his  spirit  has  no  holi- 
day ;  it  is  all  school-work.  And  thus,  generally,  we  find  in 
such  men  that  the  break  up  of  the  constitution  seems  sudden 
and  unlooked-for.  The  causes  ot  disease  and  decay  have  been 
long  laid ;  but  they  are  smothered  beneath  the  lively  appear- 
ances of  constrained  industry  and  forced  excitement." 


JAMES    SMITH,    ONE    OF   THE    AUTHORS   OF 
"  EEJECTED   ADDEESSES." 

A  WRITER  in  the  Law  Quarterly  Magazine  says  : — 
To  the  best  of  our  information,  James's  coup  d'essai  in 
literature  was  a  hoax  in  the  shape  of  a  series  of  letters 
to  the  editor  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  detailing 
some  extraordinary  antiquarian  discoveries  and  facts  in 
natural  history,  which  the  worthy  Sylvanus  Urban 
inserted  without  the  least  suspicion.  In  1803,  he  be- 
came a  constant  contributor  to  the  Pic-Nic  and  Cabinet 
weekly  journals,  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Cumberland, 
Sir  James  Bland  Burgess,  Mr.  Horatio  Smith,  and 
others.  The  principal  caterer  for  these  publications 
was  Colonel  Greville,  on  whom  Lord  Byron  has  con- 
ferred a  not  very  enviaole  immortality' — 

"  Or  hail  at  once  the  patron  and  the  pile 
Of  vice  and  folly,  Greville  and  Argyle." 

One  of  James  Smith's  favourite  anecdotes  related  to 
him.  The  Colonel  requested  his  young  ally  to  call  at 
his  lodgings,  and  in  the  course  of  their  first  interview 
related  the  particulars  of  the  most  curious  circum- 
stance in  his  life.     He  was  taken  prisoner  during  the 


JAMES  SMITH.  61 

American  war,  along  with  three  other  officers  of  the 
same  rank ;  one  evening  they  were  summoned  into 
the  presence  of  Washington,  who  announced  to  them 
that  the  conduct  of  their  Government,  in  condemning 
one  of  his  officers  to  death  as  a  rebel,  compelled  him 
to  make  reprisals ;  and  that,  much  to  his  regret,  he 
was  under  the  necessity  of  requiring  them  to  cast  lots, 
without  delay,  to  decide  which  of  them  should  he 
hanged.  They  were  then  bowed  out,  and  returned  to 
their  quarters.  Four  slips  of  paper  were  put  into  a 
hat,  and  the  shortest  was  drawn  by  Captain  Asgill, 
who  exclaimed,  "  I  knew  how  it  would  be ;  I  never 
won  so  much  as  a  hit  of  backgammon  in  my  life." 
As  Greville  told  the  story,  he  was  selected  to  sit  up 
with  Captain  Asgill,  under  the  pretext  of  companion- 
ship, but,  in  reality,  to  prevent  him  from  escaping,  and 
leaving  the  honour  amongst  the  remaining  three. 
"  And  what,"  inquired  Smith,  "  did  you  say  to  com- 
fort him  ?"  "  "Why,  I  remember  saying  to  him,  when 
they  left  us,  D —  it,  old  fellow,  never  mind ;"  but  it 
may  be  doubted  (added  Smith)  whether  he  drew  much 
comfort  from  the  exhortation.  Lady  Asgill  per- 
suaded the  French  minister  to  interpose,  and  the  cap- 
tain was  permitted  to  escape. 

Both  James  and  Horatio  Smith  were  also  contribu- 
tors to  the  Monthly  Mirror,  then  the  property  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Hill,  a  gentleman  who  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  live  familiarly  with  three  or  four  generations 
of  authors ;  the  same,  in  short,  with  whom  the  subject 
of  this  memoir  thus  playfully  remonstrated :  "  Hill,  you 
take  an  unfair  advantage  of  an  accident ;  the  register 


62  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

of  your  birth  was  burnt  in  the  great  fire  of  London, 
and  j'ou  now  give  yourself  out  for  younger  than  you 
are." 

The  fame  of  the  Smiths,  however,  was  confined  to 
a  limited  circle  until  the  publication  of  the  Rejected 
Addresses,  which  rose  at  once  into  almost  unprece- 
dented celebrity. 

James  Smith  used  to  dwell  with  much  pleasure  on 
the  criticism  of  a  Leicestershire  clergyman  :  "  I  do 
not  see  why  they  (the  Addresses')  should  have  been 
rejected :  I  think  some  of  them  very  good."  This, 
he  would  add,  is  almost  as  good  as  the  avowal  of  the 
Irish  bishop,  that  there  were  some  things  in  Gulliver's 
Travels  which  he  could  not  beli«ve. 

Though  never  guilty  of  intemperance,  James  was  a 
martyr  to  the  gout ;  and,  independently  of  the  diffi- 
culty he  experienced  in  locomotion,  he  partook  largely 
of  the  feeling  avowed  by  his  old  friend  Jekyll,  who 
used  to  say  that,  if  compelled  to  live  in  the  country, 
he  would  have  the  drive  before  his  house  paved  like 
the  streets  of  London,  and  hire  a  hackney-coach  to 
drive  up  and  down  all  day  long. 

He  used  to  tell,  with  great  glee,  a  story  showing 
the  general  conviction  of  his  dislike  to  ruralities.  He 
was  sitting  in  the  library  at  a  country-house,  when  a 
gentleman  proposed  a  quiet  stroll  into  the  pleasure- 
grounds  : — 

"  '  Stroll  1  why,  don't  you  see  my  gouty  shoe  ?• 
"  '  Yes,  I  see  that  plain  enough,  and  I  wish  Td  brought  one 
too,  but  they're  all  out  now.' 
"  'Well,  and  what  then  V 
" '  What  then  ?    Why,  my  dear  fellow,  you  don't  mean  to 


JAMES  SMITH.  63 

eay  that  you  have  really  got  the  gout  ?  I  thought  you  had 
only  put  on  that  shoe  to  get  off  being  shown  over  the  improve- 
ments.'" 

His  bachelorship  is  thus  attested  in  his  niece's 
album : 

"  Should  I  seek  Hymen's  tie. 
As  a  poet  I  die. 

Ye  Benedicts  mourn  my  distresses  i 
For  vrhat  little  fame 
Is  annexed  to  my  name. 
Is  derived  from  Rejected  Addresses." 

The  two  following  are  amongst  the  best  of  his  good 
things.  A  gentleman  with  the  same  Christian  and 
surname  took  lodgings  in  the  same  house.  The  con- 
sequence was,  eternal  confusion  of  calls  and  letters. 
Indeed,  the  postman  had  no  alternative  but  to  share  the 
letters  equally  between  the  two.  "  This  is  intolerable, 
sir,"  said  our  friend,  "  and  you  must  quit."  "  Why 
am  I  to  quit  more  than  you?"  "Because  you  are 
James  the  Second — and  must  abdicate." 

Mr.  Bentley  proposed  to  establish  a  periodical  pub- 
lication, to  be  called  The  Wifs  Miscellany.  Smith 
objected  that  the  title  promised  too  much.  Shortly 
afterwards,  the  publisher  came  to  tell  him  that  he  had 
profited  by  the  hint,  and  resolved  on  calling  it  Bentley  s 
Miscellany.  "Isn't  that  going  a  little  too  far  the 
other  way  ?  "  was  the  remark. 

A  capital  pun  has  been  very  generally  attributed  to 
him.  An  actor,  named  Priest,  was  playing  at  one  of 
the  principal  theatres.  Some  one  remarked  at  the 
Garrick  Club,  that  there  were  a  great  many  men  in 
the  pit.  "  Probably,  clerks  w  ho  have  taken  Priest's 
orders."    The  pun  is  perfect,  but  the  real  proprietor 


64  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

is  Mr.  Poole,  one  of  the  best  punsters  as  well  as  one 
of  the  cleverest  comic  writers  and  finest  satirists  ot  the 
day.     It  has  also  been  attributed  to  Charles  Lamb. 

Formerly,  it  was  customary,  on  emergencies,  for  the 
judges  to  swear  affidavits  at  their  dwelling-houses. 
Smith  was  desired  by  his  father  to  attend  a  judge's 
chambers  for  that  purpose,  but  being  engaged  to  dine 
in  Russell-square,  at  the  next  house  to  Mr.  Justice 
Holroyd's,  he  thought  he  might  as  well  save  himself 
the  disagreeable  necessity  of  leaving  the  party  at  eight 
by  dispatching  his  business  at  once  :  so,  a  few  minutes 
before  six,  he  boldly  knocked  at  the  judge's,  and  re- 
quested to  speak  to  him  on  particular  business.  The 
iudge  was  at  dinner,  but  came  down  without  delay, 
swore  the  affidavit,  and  then  gravely  asked  what  was 
the  pressing  necessity  that  induced  our  friend  to  dis- 
turb him  at  that  hour.  As  Smith  told  the  story,  he 
raked  his  invention  for  a  lie,  but  finding  none  fit  for 
the  purpose,  he  blurted  out  the  truth  : — 

"•  The  fact  is,  my  lord,  I  am  engaged  to  dine  at  the  next  honse 
— and —  and ' 

"'And,  sir,  you  thought  you  might  as  well  save  your  own 
dinner  by  spoiling  mine  ?' 

" '  Exactly  so,  my  lord,  but ' 

" •  Sir,  I  wish  you  a  good  evening.'" 

Smith  was  rather  fond  of  a  joke  on  his  own  branch 
of  the  profession  ;  he  always  gave  a  peculiar  emphasis 
to  the  line  in  his  song  on  the  contradiction  of  names  r 

"  Mr.  Makepeace  was  bred  an  attorney ;" 

and  would   frequently  quote    Goldsmith's    iines   on 


CONTEMPORARY  COPYRIGHTS.        65 

Hickey,  the  associate  of  Burke  and  other  distinguished 
cotemporaries : 

"  He  cherished  his  friend,  and  he  relished  a  bumper ; 
Yet  one  fault  he  had,  and  that  was  a  thumper. 
Then,  what  was  his  failing  ?  come,  tell  it,  and  bum  ye  : 
He  was,  could  he  help  it  ?  a  special  attorney." 

The  following  playful  colloquy  in  verse  took  place 
at  a  dinner-table  between  Sir  George  Rose  and  him- 
self, in  allusion  to  Craven-street,  Strand,  where  he 
resided : — 

"  J.  S. — '  At  the  top  of  my  street  the  attorneys  abound. 

And  down  at  the  bottom  the  barges  are  found : 
Fly,  Honesty,  fly  to  some  safer  retreat, 

For  there's  craft  in  the  river,  and  craft  in  the  street." 

"  Sir  G.  R. — '  Why  should  Honesty  fly  to  some  safer  retreat. 
From  attorneys  and  barges,  od  rot  'em  ? 
For  the  lawyers  are  just  at  the  top  of  the  street. 
And  the  barges  ax^just  at  the  bottom.*" 


CONTEMPORARY    COPYRIGHTS, 
The  late  Mr.  Tegg,  the  publisher  in  Cheapside,  gave 
the  following  list  of  remunerative  payments  to  dis- 
tinguished authors  in  his  time  ,•  and  he  is  believed  to 
have  taken  considerable  pains  to  verify  the  items : 

Fragments  of  History,  by  Charles  Fox,  sold  by 
Lord  Holland,  for  5000  guineas.  Fragments  of  His- 
tory, by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  500/.  Lingard's  His- 
tory of  England,  4683^.  Sir  Walter  Scott's  Bonaparte 
was  sold,  with  the  printed  books,  for  18,000?. ;  the  net 
receipts  of  copyright  on  the  first  two  editions  only 
must  have  been  10,000?.  Life  of  Wilberforce,  by  his 
E 


66  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

sons,  4000  guineas.  Life  of  Byron,  by  Moore,  4000Z. 
Life  of  Sheridan,  by  Moore,  2000Z.  Life  of  Hannah 
More,  2000?.  Life  of  Cowper,  by  Southey,  lOOOZ. 
Life  and  Times  of  George  IV.,  by  Lady  C.  Bury, 
1000/.  Byron's  Works,  20,000Z.  Lord  of  the  Isles, 
half  share,  1500Z.  Lalla  Rookh,  by  ]\Ioore,  3000Z. 
Eejected  Addresses,  by  Smith,  1000?.  Crabbe's  Works, 
republication  of,  by  Mr.  Murray,  3000Z,  Words- 
worth's Works,  republication  of,  by  Mr.  Moxon, 
1050?.  Bulwer's  Rienzi,  1600?.  Marryat's  Novels,  500?. 
to  1500?.  each.  TroUope's  Factory  Boy,  1800?.  Hannah 
More  derived  30,000?.  per  annum  for  her  copyrights, 
during  the  latter  years  of  her  life.  Rundell's  Domestic 
Cookery,  2000?.  Nicholas  Nickleby,  3000?.  Eustace's 
Classical  Tour,  2100?.  Sir  Robert  Inglis  obtained  for 
the  beautiful  and  interesting  viidow  of  Bishop  Heber, 
by  the  sale  of  his  journal,  5000?. 


MISS   BURNEY's  "EVELINA.** 

The  story  of  Evelina  being  printed  when  the  authoress 
was  but  seventeen  years  old  is  proved  to  have  been 
sheer  invention,  to  trumpet  the  work  into  notoriety; 
since  it  has  no  more  truth  in  it  than  a  paid-for  news- 
paper puff.  The  year  of  Miss  Burney's  birth  was  long 
involved  in  studied  obscurity,  and  thus  the  deception 
lasted,  until  one  fine  day  it  was  ascertained,  by  refer- 
ence to  the  register  of  the  authoress'  birth,  that  she 
was  a  woman  of  six  or  seven-and-twenty,  instead  of  a 
"  Miss  in  her  teens,"  when  she  wrote  Evelina.    The 


EPITAPH  ON  C.  LAMB.  67 

story  of  her  father's  utter  ignorance  of  the  work 
being  written  by  her,  and  recommending  her  to  read 
it,  as  an  exception  to  the  novel  class,  has  also  been 
essentially  modified.  Miss  Burney,  (then  Madame 
D'Arblay,)  is  said  to  have  taken  the  characters  in  her 
novel  of  Camilla  from  the  family  of  Mr.  Lock,  of 
Norbury  Park,  who  built  for  Gen.  D'Arblay  the 
villa  in  which  the  work  was  written,  and  which  to 
this  day  is  called  "  Camilla  Lacy."  By  this  novel, 
Madame  D'Arblay  is  said  to  have  realized  3000 
guineas. 

EPITAPH   ON    CHARLES   LAMB. 
Lamb  lies  buried  in  Edmonton  churchyard,  and  the 
stone  bears  the  following  lines  to  his  memory,  written 
by  his  friend,  the  Rev.  H.  F.  Gary,  the  erudite  trans- 
lator of  Dante  and  Pindar : — 

"  Farewell,  dear  friend ! — that  smile,  that  harmless  mirth. 
No  more  shall  gladdea  our  domestic  hearth  ; 
That  rising  tear,  with  pain  forbid  to  flow — 
Better  than  words — no  more  assuage  our  woe. 
That  hand  outstretch'd  from  small  but  weU-eamed  store 
Yield  succour  to  the  destitute  no  more. 
Yet  art  thou  not  all  lost :  through  many  an  age, 
"With  sterling  sense  and  humour,  shall  thy  page 
"Win  many  an  English  bosom,  pleased  to  see 
That  old  and  happier  vein  revived  in  thee. 
This  for  our  earth ;  and  if  with  friends  we  share 
Our  joys  in  heaven,  we  hope  to  meet  thee  there." 

Lamb  survived  his  earliest  friend  and  school-fellow, 
Coleridge,  only  a  few  months.  One  morning  he  showed 
to  a  friend  the  mourning  ring  which  the  author  of 
Christabelle  had  left  him.    "Poor  fellow  J"  exclaimed 


68  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Lamb,  "  I  have  never  ceased  to  think  of  him  from  the 
day  I  first  heard  of  his  death."  Lamb  died  in  Jive  days 
after — December  27,  1834,  in  his  fifty-ninth  year. 


"TOM  cringle's  log." 
The  author  of  this  very  successful  work,  (originally 
published  in  BlachooocTs  Magazine,)  was  a  Mr.  Mick 
Scott,  born  in  Edinburgh  in  1789,  and  educated  at 
the  High  School.  Several  years  of  his  life  were  spent 
in  the  "West  Indies.  He  ultimately  married,  returned 
to  his  native  country,  and  there  embarked  in  commer- 
cial speculations,  in  the  leisure  between  which  he  wrote 
the  Log.  Notwithstanding  its  popularity  in  Europe 
and  America,  the  author  preserved  his  incognito  to 
the  last.  He  survived  his  publisher  for  some  years, 
and  it  was  not  till  Mr.  Scott's  death  that  the  sons  of 
Mr.  Blackwood  were  aware  of  his  name. 


CHANCES  FOR  THE  DRAMA. 
The  royal  patent,  by  which  the  performance  of  the 
regular  drama  was  restricted  to  certain  theatres,  does 
not  appear  to  have  fostered  this  class  of  writing.  Dr. 
Johnson  forced  Goldsmith's  She  Stoops  to  Conquer 
into  the  theatre.  Tobin  died  regretting  that  he  could 
not  succeed  in  hearing  the  Honeymoon  performed. 
Lillo  produced  George  Barnwell  (an  admirably  written 
plav)  at  an  irregular  theatre,  after  it  had  been  rejected 
by  the  holders  of  the  patents.  Douglas  was  cast  on 
Home's  hands.  Fielding  was  introduced  as  a  dramatist 


FULLERS  MEMORY.  69 

at  an  unlicensed  house;  and  one  of  Mrs.  Inchbald's 
popular  comedies  had  lain  two  years  neglected,  when, 
by  a  trifling  accident,  she  was  able  to  obtain  the 
manager's  approval. 


FULLERS   MEMORY. 

Marvellous  anecdotes  are  related  of  Dr.  Thomas 
Fuller's  memory.  Thus,  it  is  stated  that  he  under- 
took once,  in  passing  to  and  from  Temple  Bar  to  the 
farthest  conduit  in  Cheapside,  to  tell  at  his  return  every 
sign  as  they  stood  in  order  on  both  sides  of  the  way, 
repeating  them  either  backward  or  forward.  This 
must  have  been  a  great  feat,  seeing  that  every  house 
then  bore  a  sign.  Yet,  Fuller  himself  decried  this 
kind  of  thing  as  a  trick,  no  art.  He  relates  that  one 
(who  since  wrote  a  book  thereof)  told  him,  before 
credible  people,  that  he,  in  Sidney  College,  had  taught 
him  (Fuller)  the  art  of  memory.  Fuller  replied  that 
it  was  not  so,  for  he  could  not  remember  that  he  had 
ever  seen  him  before ;  "  which,  I  conceive,"  adds 
Fuller,  "  was  a  real  refutation ;''  and  we  think  so,  too. 


LORD   HERVEYS   WIT. 

HoBACE  Walpolb  records  Lord  Hervey's  memorable 
saying  about  Lord  Burlington's  pretty  villa  at  Chis- 
wick,  now  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's,  that  it  was  "  too 
small  to  inhabit,  and  too  large  to  hang  to  your  watch  ;" 
and  Lady  Louisa  Stuart  has  preserved  a  piece  of 
dandyism  in  eating,  which  even  Beau  Brunr^ell  might 


70  BOOKS  AND  A  UTHORS. 

have  envied — "When  asked  at  dinner  whether  he 
would  have  some  beef,  he  answered,  '  Beef  ?  oh,  no ! 
faugh!  don't  you  know  I  never  eat  beef,  nor  horse, 
nor  any  of  those  things  ?'  " — The  man  that  said  these 
things  was  the  successful  lover  of  the  prettiest  maid 
of  honour  to  the  Princess  of  Wales — the  person  held 
up  to  everlasting  ridicule  by  Pope — the  vice-chamber- 
lain whose  attractions  engaged  the  affections  of  the 
daughter  of  the  Sovereign  he  served;  and  the  peer 
whose  wit  was  such  that  it  "  charmed  the  charming 
Mary  Montague." 


ANACREONTIC  INVITATION,  BY  MOORE. 
The  following,  one  of  the  latest  productions  of  the 
poet  Moore,  addressed  to  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne, 
shows  that  though  by  that  time  inclining  to  threescore 
and  ten,  he  retained  all  the  fire  and  vivacity  of  early 
youth.  It  is  full  of  those  exquisitely  apt  allusions  and 
felicitous  turns  of  expression  in  which  the  English 
Anacreon  excels.  It  breathes  the  very  spirit  of  classic 
festivity.  Such  an  invitation  to  dinner  is  enough  to 
create  an  appetite  in  any  lover  of  poetry : — 

"  Some  think  we  bards  have  nothing  real— 

That  poets  live  among  the  stars,  so 
Their  very  dinners  are  ideal, — 

(And  heaven  knows,  too  oft  they  are  so :) 
For  instance,  that  we  have,  instead 

Of  -vTilgar  chops  and  stews,  and  haahei, 
First  course, — a  phcEnix  at  the  head. 

Done  in  its  own  celestial  ashes  : 
At  foot,  a  cygnet,  which  kept  singing 

All  the  time  its  neck  was  wringing. 
Side  dishes,  thus, — Minerva's  owl. 

Or  any  such  like  learned  fowl ; 


THE  POETS  IN  A  PUZZLE.  71 

Doves,  such  as  heaven's  poulterer  geta 

When  Cupid  shoots  his  mother's  pets. 
Larks  stew'd  in  morning's  roseate  breath. 

Or  roasted  by  a  sunbeam's  splendour ; 
And  nightingales,  be-rhymed  to  death — 

I/ike  young  pigs  whipp'd  to  make  them  tender 
Such  fare  may  suit  those  bard's  who're  able 
To  banquet  at  Duke  Humphrey's  table  ; 
But  as  for  me,  who've  long  been  taught 

To  eat  and  drink  like  other  people. 
And  can  put  up  vpith  mutton,  bought 

Where  Bromham  rears  its  ancient  steeple ; 
If  Lansdowne  will  consent  to  share 
My  humble  feast,  though  rude  the  fare 
Yet,  seasoned  by  that  salt  he  brings 
From  Attica's  salinest  springs, 
'Twill  turn  to  dainties ;  while  the  cup, 
Beneath  his  influence  brightening  up. 
Like  that  of  Baucis,  touched  by  Jove, 
Will  sparkle  fit  for  gods  above !" 


THE    POETS    IN   A  PUZZLE. 

Cottle,  in  his  Life  of  Coleridge,  relates  the  following 
amusing  incident : — 

"  I  led  the  horse  to  the  stable,  when  a  fresh  per- 
plexity arose.  I  removed  the  harness  without  diffi- 
culty ;  but,  after  many  strenuous  attempts,  I  could  not 
remove  the  collar.  In  despair,  I  called  for  assistance, 
when  aid  soon  drew  near.  Mr.  Wordsworth  brought 
his  ingenuity  into  exercise  ;  but,  after  several  unsuc- 
cessful eiforts,  be  relinquished  the  achievement,  as  a 
thing  altogether  impracticable.  Mr.  Coleridge  now 
tried  his  hand,  but  showed  no  more  grooming  skill 
than  his  predecessors;  for,  after  twisting  the  poor 
horse's  neck  almost  to  strangulation  and  the  great 


72  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

danger  of  his  eyes,  he  gave  up  the  useless  task,  pro- 
nouncing that  the  horse's  head  must  have  grown  (gout 
or  dropsy  ?)  since  the  collar  was  put  on ;  for  he  said  '  it 
was  a  downright  impossibility  for  such  a  huge  os 
frontis  to  pass  through  so  narrow  a  collar !'  Just  at 
this  instant,  a  servant-girl  came  near,  and,  understand- 
ing the  cause  of  our  consternation,  '  La !  master,'  said 
she,  '  you  don't  go  about  the  work  in  the  right  way. 
You  should  do  like  this,'  when,  turning  the  collar 
completely  upside  down,  she  slipped  it  off'  in  a  moment, 
to  our  great  humiliation  and  wonderment,  each  satis- 
fied afresh  that  there  were  heights  of  knowledge  in  the 
world  to  which  we  had  not  yet  attained." 


SALE  OF  MAGAZINES. 
Sib.  John  Hawkins,  in  his  "  Memoii's  of  Johnson," 
ascribes  the  decline  of  literature  to  the  ascendancy  of 
frivolous  Magazines,  between  the  years  1740  and  1760. 
He  says  that  they  render  smatterers  conceited,  and 
confer  the  superficial  glitter  of  knowledge  instead  of 
its  substance. 

Sir  Richard  Phillips,  upwards  of  forty  years  a  pub- 
lisher, gives  the  following  evidence  as  to  the  sale  of 
the  Magazines  in  his  time  : — 

"For  my  own  part,  I  know  that  in  1790,  and  for 
many  years  previously,  there  were  sold  of  the  trifle 
called  the  Town  and  Country  Magazine,  full  15,000 
copies  per  month ;  and,  of  another,  the  Ladies'  Ma- 
gazine, from  16,000  to  22,000.  Such  circumstances 
were,  therefore,  calculated  to  draw  forth  the  observa- 


3IRS.  SOUTHEY.  73 

tions  of  Hawkins.  The  Gentlemaris  Magazine^  in  its 
days  of  popular  extracts,  never  rose  above  10,000  \ 
after  it  became  more  decidedly  antiquarian,  it  fell  in 
sale,  and  continued  for  many  years  at  3000. 

"  The  veriest  trifles,  and  only  such,  move  the  mass 
of  minds  which  compose  the  public.  The  sale  of  the 
Town  and  Country  Magazine  was  created  by  a  ficti- 
tious article,  called  Bon- Ton,  in  which  were  given  the 
pretended  amours  of  two  personages,  imagined  to  be 
real,  with  two  sham  portraits.  The  idea  was  con- 
ceived, and,  for  above  twenty  years,  was  executed  by 
Count  Carraccioli ;  but,  on  his  death,  about  1792,  the 
article  lost  its  spirit,  and  within  seven  years  the  ma- 
gazine was  discontinued.  The  Ladies^  Magazine  was, 
in  like  manner,  sustained  by  love-tales  and  its  low 
price  of  sixpence,  which,  till  after  1790,  was  the  ge- 
neral price  of  magazines." 

Things  have  now  taken  a  turn  unlocked  for  in  those 
days.  The  price  of  most  magazines,  it  is  true,  is  still 
more  than  sixpence — usually  a  shilling,  and  at  that 
price  the  Cornhill  in  some  months  reached  an  im- 
pression of  120,000  ;  but  the  circulation  of  Good 
Words,  at  sixpence,  has  touched  180,000,  and  con- 
tinues, we  believe,  to  be  over  100,000. 


MRS.    SOUTHEY. 

And  who  was  Mrs.  Southey  ? — who  but  she  who  was 
BO  long  known,  and  so  great  a  favourite,  as  Caroline 
liowles ;  transformed  by  the  gallantry  of  the  laureate, 
and  the  grace  of  the  parson,  into  her  matrimonial  ap- 


74  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

pellation.  Southey,  so  long  ago  as  the  21st  of  February, 
1829,  prefaced  his  most  amatory  poem  of  All  for  Love, 
with  a  tender  address,  that  is  now,  perhaps,  worth  re- 
printing : — 

"  TO    CAROLINE  BOWLES. 

"  Could  I  look  forward  to  a  distant  day. 
With  hope  of  building  some  elaborate  lay, 
Then  would  I  wait  till  wortliier  strains  of  mine. 
Might  have  inscribed  thy  name,  O  Caroline ! 
For  I  would,  while  my  voice  is  heard  on  earth, 
Bear  witness  to  thy  genius  and  thy  worth. 
But  we  have  been  both  taught  to  feel  with  fear. 
How  frail  the  tenure  of  existence  here ; 
"What  unforeseen  calamities  prevent, 
Alas !  how  oft,  the  best  resolved  intent ; 
And,  therefore,  this  poor  volume  I  address 
To  thee,  dear  friend,  and  sister  poetess  I 

"Keswick,  Feb.  21,1829.  "Egbert  Southey." 

The  laureate  had  his  wish  ;  for  in  duty,  he  was  bound 
to  say,  that  worthier  strains  than  his  bore  inscribed 
the  name  of  Caroline  connected  with  his  own — and, 
moreover,  she  was  something  more  than  a  dear  friend 
and  sister  poetess. 

"  The  laureate,"  observes  a  writer  in  Fraser's  Ma- 
gazine, "  is  a  fortunate  man  ;  his  queen  supplies  him 
with  hutts  (alluding  to  the  laureateship),  and  his  lady 
with  Bowls :  then  may  his  cup  of  good  fortune  be 
overflowing." 


DEVOTION   TO   SCIENCE. 
M.  Agassiz,  the  celebrated  palaeontologist,  is  known 
to  have  relinquished  pursuits  from  which  he  might 
have  been  in  the  receipt  of  a  considerable  income,  and 


DISADVANTAGEOUS  CORRECTION.    75 

all  for  the  sal^e  of  science.  Dr.  Buckland  knew  him, 
when  engaged  in  this  arduous  career,  with  the  revenue 
of  only  100/.:  and  of  this  he  paid  fifty  pounds  to 
artists  for  drawings,  thirty  pounds  for  books,  and 
lived  himself  on  the  remaining  twenty  pounds  a  year  ! 
Thus  did  he  raise  himself  to  an  elevated  European 
rank ;  and,  in  his  abode,  au  troisiemefWas  the  companion 
and  friend  of  princes,  ambassadors,  and  men  of  the 
highest  rank  and  talent  of  every  country. 


DISADVANTAGEOUS  CORRECTION. 
LoRB  NoKTH  had  little  reason  to  congratulate  himself 
when  he  ventured  on  an  interruption  with  Burke.  In 
a  debate  on  some  economical  question,  Burke  was 
guilty  of  a  false  quantity — ^'^  Magnum,  vectigal  est  par - 
simonia."  "  Vectigal"  said  the  minister,  in  an  audible 
under-tone.  "  I  thank  the  noble  lord  for  his  correc- 
tion," resumed  the  orator,  "since  it  gives  me  the 
opportunity  of  repeating  the  inestimable  adage — 
" Magnum  vectigal  est  parsimonia"  (Parsimony  is  a 
great  revenue.) 


PATRONAGE  OF  LITERATURE. 
"When  Victor  Hugo  was  an  aspirant  for  the  honours 
of  the  French  Academy,  and  called  on  M.  Eoyer 
CoUard  to  ask  his  vote,  the  sturdy  veteran  professed 
entire  ignorance  of  his  name.  "  I  am  the  author  of 
Notre  Dame  de  Paris,  Les  Derniers  Jours  cCun  Con- 
damne,  Bug-Jargal,  Marian  Delorme,  &c."  "  I  never 
heard  of  any  of  them,"  said  CoUard.    "  Will  you  do 


76  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

me  the  honour  of  accepting  a  copy  of  my  worl<s  ?" 
said  Victor  Hugo.  *'  I  never  read  new  books,"  was 
the  cutting  reply. 


DE.  JOHNSON  S  WIGS. 
De.  Johnson's  wigs  were  in  general  very  shabby, 
and  their  fore-parts  were  burned  away  by  the  near 
approach  of  the  candle,  which  his  short-sightedness 
rendered  necessary  in  reading.  At  Streatham,  Mr. 
Thrale's  butler  always  had  a  wig  ready ;  and  as  John- 
son passed  from  the  drawing-room,  when  dinner  was 
announced,  the  servant  would  remove  the  ordinary 
wig,  and  replace  it  with  the  newer  one ;  and  this  ludi- 
crous ceremony  was  performed  every  day. — Croker. 


Sheridan's  "  pizarro." 

Mr.  Pitt  was  accustomed  to  relate  very  pleasantly 
an  amusing  anecdote  of  a  total  breach  of  memory  in 
some  Mrs.  Lloyd,  a  lady,  or  nominal  housekeeper,  ot 
Kensington  Palace,  "  Being  in  company,"  he  said, 
"  with  Mr.  Sheridan,  without  recollecting  him,  while 
Pizarro  was  the  topic  of  discussion,  she  said  to  him, 
•  And  so  this  fine  Pizarro  is  printed  ?'  '  Yes,  so  I 
hear,'  said  Sherry.  '  And  did  you  ever  in  your  life 
read  such  stuff  ?'  cried  she.  '  Why  I  believe  it's  bad 
enough,'  quoth  Sherry  5  '  but  at  least,  madam,  you  must 
allow  it's  very  loyal.'  'Ah!' cried  she,  shaking  her 
head — '  loyal  ?  you  don't  know  its  author  as  well  aa 
I  do.'" 


REALITY  OF  GENIUS.  77 

DR.    JOHNSON    IN   LONDON. 
Tub  following  were  Dr.  Johnson's  several  places  of 
residence  in  and  near  London : — 

1.  Exeter-street,  off  Catherine-street,  Strand.  (1737.) 

2.  Greenwich.  (1737.) 

8.  Woodstock-street,  near  Hanover-square.  (1737.) 

4.  Castle-court,  Cavendish-square,  No.  6.  (1738.) 

5.  Boswell-court. 

6.  Strand. 

7.  Strand,  again. 

8.  Bow-street. 

9.  Holbom. 

10.  Fetter-lane. 

1 1.  Holbom  again ;  at  the  Golden  Anchor,  Holbom  Bars.  (1743.) 

12.  Gough-square.  (1748.) 

13.  Staple  Inn.  (1758.) 

14.  Gray's  Inn. 

15.  Inner  Temple-lane,  No.  1.  (1760.) 

16.  Johnson's -court.  Fleet-street,  No.  5.  (1765.) 

17.  Bolt-court,  Fleet-street,  No.  8.  (1776.) 


REGALITY  OF  GENIUS. 
Gibbon,  when  speaking  of  his  own  genealogy,  refers 
to  the  fact  of  Fielding  being  of  the  same  family  as  the 
Earl  of  Denbigh,  who,  in  common  with  the  Imperial 
family  of  Austria,  is  descended  from  the  celebrated 
Rodolph,  of  Hapshurgh.  "  While  the  one  branch,"  he 
says,  "have  contented  themselves  with  being  sheriffs 
of  Leicestershire,  and  justices  of  the  peace,  the  others 
have  been  emperors  of  Germany  and  kings  of  Spain ; 
but  the  magnificent  romance  of  Tom  Jones  will  be 
read  with  pleasure,  when  the  palace  of  the  Escurial  is 
in  ruins,  and  the  Imperial  Eagle  of  Austria  is  rolling 
in  the  dust." 


78  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

FIELDING'S  "TOM  JONES." 
FiEU>iNG  having  finished  the  manuscript  of  Tom 
Jones,  and  being  at  the  time  hard  pressed  for  money- 
took  it  to  a  second-rate  publisher,  with  the  view  of  sell- 
ing it  for  what  it  would  fetch  at  the  moment.  He  left  it 
with  the  trader,  and  called  upon  him  next  day  for  his 
decision.  The  bookseller  hesitated,  and  requested 
another  day  for  consideration  ;  and  at  parting.  Fielding 
offered  him  the  MS.  for  251. 

On  his  way  home,  Fielding  met  Thomson,  the  poet, 
whom  he  told  of  the  negotiation  for  the  sale  of  the 
MS. ;  when  Thomson,  knowing  the  high  merit  of  the 
work,  conjured  him  to  be  off  the  bargain,  and  offered 
to  find  a  better  purchaser. 

Next  morning,  Fielding  hastened  to  his  appointment, 
with  as  much  apprehension  lest  the  bookseller  should 
stick  to  his  bargain  as  he  had  felt  the  day  before  lest 
he  should  altogether  decline  it.  To  the  author's  great 
joy,  the  ignorant  trafficker  in  literature  declined,  and 
returned  the  MS.  to  Fielding.  He  next  set  off,  with 
a  light  heart,  to  his  friend  Thomson ;  and  the  novelist 
and  the  poet  then  went  to  Andrew  Millar,  the  great 
publisher  of  the  day.  Millar,  as  was  his  practice  with 
works  of  light  reading,  handed  the  MS.  to  his  wife, 
who,  having  read  it,  advised  him  by  no  means  to  let  it 
slip  through  his  fingers. 

Millar  now  invited  the  two  friends  to  meet  him  at  a 
coffee-house  in  the  Strand,  where,  after  dinner,  the 
bookseller,  with  great  caution,  offered  Fielding  20CZ. 
for  the  MS.     The  novelist  was  amazed  at  the  large- 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FERNEY.  79 

ness  of  the  offer.  "  Then,  my  good  sir,"  said  Fielding, 
recovering  himself  from  his  unexpected  stroke  of  good 
fortune,  "  give  me  your  hand — the  book  is  yours.  And, 
waiter,"  continued  he,  "  bring  a  couple  of  bottles  of 
your  best  port." 

Before  Millar  died,  he  had  cleared  eighteen  thou- 
sand pounds  by  Tom  Jones,  out  of  which  he  generously 
made  Fielding  various  presents,  to  the  amount  of 
2000Z. ;  and  he  closed  his  life  by  bequeathing  a  hand- 
some legacy  to  each  of  Fielding's  sons. 


VOLTAIRE  AND  FERNEY. 
The  showman's  work  is  very  profitable  at  the  country- 
house  of  Voltaire,  at  Ferney,  near  Geneva.  A  Gene- 
vese,  an  excellent  calculator,  as  are  all  his  countrymen, 
many  years  ago  valued  as  follows  the  yearly  profit 
derived  by  the  above  functionary  from  his  situation: — 

Francs. 
8000  busts  of  Voltaire,  made  with  earth  of 

Ferney,  at  a  franc  a-piece  ..,-..  8,000 
1200  autograph  letters,  at  20  francs  ....  24,000 
500  walking  canes  of  Voltaire,  at  50  francs  each  25,000 
300  veritable  wigs  of  Voltaire,  at  100  francs      30,000 


In  all    .     .     -         .  87,000 


CLEAN    HANDS. 
Loud  Beougham,  during  his  indefatigable  canvass  of 
Yorkshire,  in  the  course  of  which  he  often  addressed 
ten   or  a  dozen  meetings  in  a  day,   thought  fit  to 


80  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

harangue  the  electors  of  Leeds  immediately  on  his 
arrival,  after  travelling  all  night,  and  without  waiting 
to  perform  his  customary  ablutions.  "  These  hands 
are  clean !"  cried  he,  at  the  conclusion  of  a  diatribe 
against  corruption ;  hut  they  happened  to  be  very  dirty, 
and  this  practical  contradiction  raised  a  hearty  laugh. 


MODERATE    FLATTERY. 

Jasper  Matne  says  of  Master  Cartwright,  the  author 

of  tolerable  comedies  and  poems,  printed  in  1651 : — 

'  Yes,  thou  to  Nature  hadst  joined  art  and  skill ; 
In  thee,  Ben  Jonson  still  held  Shakspeare's  quill." 


EVERY-DAY   LIFE    OF   JAMES    SMITH. 
•'  One  of  the  Authors  of  the  Rejected  Addresses"  thus 
•writes  to  a  friend :  *  — 

"  Let  me  enlighten  you  as  to  the  general  disposal  of 
my  time.  I  breakfast  at  nine,  with  a  mind  undis- 
turbed by  matters  of  business ;  I  then  write  to  you,  or 
to  some  editor,  and  then  read  till  three  o'clock.  I  then 
walk  to  the  Union  Club,  read  the  journals,  hear  Lord 
John  Russell  deified  or  diahlerized,  (that  word  is  not 
a  bad  coinage,)  do  the  same  with  Sir  Eobert  Peel  or 
the  Duke  of  Wellington ;  and  then  join  a  knot  of  con- 
versationists by  the  fire  till  six  o'clock,  consisting  of 
lawyers,  merchants,  members  of  Parliament,  and 
gentlemen  at  large.  We  then  and  there  discuss  the 
three  per  cent,  consols,  (some  of  us  preferring  Dutch 

*  In  his  Comic  Miscellanies. 


A  JEU-DE-MOT.  81 

two-and-a-half  per  cent.),  and  speculate  upon  the  pro- 
bable rise,  shape,  and  cost  of  the  New  Exchange.  If 
Lady  Harrington  happen  to  drive  past  our  window 
in  her  landau,  we  compare  her  equipage  to  the  Algerine 
Ambassador's;  and  when  politics  happen  to  be  dis- 
cussed, rally  Whigs,  Kadicals,  and  Conservatives  alter- 
nately, but  never  seriously, — such  subjects  having  a 
tendency  to  create  acrimony.  At  six,  the  room  begins 
to  be  deserted;  wherefore  I  adjourn  to  the  dining- 
room,  and  gravely  looking  over  the  bill  of  fare,  exclaim 
to  the  waiter,  '  Haunch  of  mutton  and  apple  tart.' 
These  viands  despatched,  with  the  accompanying 
liquids  and  water,  I  mount  upward  to  the  library, 
take  a  book  and  my  seat  in  the  arm-chair,  and  read 
till  nine.  Then  call  for  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  biscuit, 
resuming  my  book  till  eleven ;  afterwards  return  home 
to  bed.  If  I  have  any  book  here  which  particularly 
excites  my  attention,  I  place  my  lamp  on  a  table  by 
my  bed-side,  and  read  in  bed  until  twelve.  No  danger 
of  ignition,  my  lamp  being  quite  safe,  and  my  curtains 
moreen.  Thus '  ends  this  strange  eventful  history,'  "  &c. 


FRENCH-ENGLISH  JEU-DE-MOT. 
The  celebrated  Mrs.  Thicknesse  undertook  to  con- 
struct a  letter,  every  word  of  which  should  be  French, 
yet  no  Frenchman  should  be  able  to  read  it ;  while 
an  illiterate  Englishman  or  Englishwoman  should  de- 
cipher it  with  ease.  Here  is  the  specimen  of  the  lady's 
ingenuity : — 

"  Pre,  dire  sistre,  comme  and  se  us.  and  pass  the  de 

F 


82  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

here  if  yeux  canne,  and  chat  tu  my  dame,  and  dine 
here ;  and  yeux  mai  go  to  the  faire  if  yeux  plaise ; 
yeux  mai  have  fiche,  muttin,  pore,  buter,  foule,  hair, 
fruit,  pigeon,  olives,  sallette,  forure  diner,  and  excel- 
lent te,  cafe,  port  vin,  an  liqueurs ;  and  tell  ure  bette 
and  poll  to  comme  ;  and  He  go  tu  the  faire  and  visite 
the  Baron.  But  if  yeux  dont  comme  tu  us.  He  go  to 
ure  house  and  se  oncle,  and  se  houe  he  does ;  for  mi 
dame  se  he  bean  ill ;  but  deux  comme ;  mi  dire  yeux 
canne  ly  here  yeux  nos ;  if  yeux  love  musique,  yeux 
mai  have  the  harp,  lutte,  or  viol  heere.  Adieu,  mi 
dire  sistre." 


RELICS   OF   IZAAK  WALTON. 

FiiATMAx's  beautiful  lines  to  "Walton,  (says  Mr.  Jesse) 
commencing — 

"  Happy  old  man,  whose  worth  all  mankind  knows 
Except  himself," 

have  always  struck  us  as  conveying  a  true  picture  of 
Walton's  character,  and  of  the  estimation  in  which  he 
was  held  after  the  appearance  of  his  "  Angler." 

The  last  male  descendant  of  our  "honest  father," 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Herbert  Hawes,  died  in  1839.  He  very 
liberally  bequeathed  the  beautiful  painting  of  Walton, 
by  Houseman,  to  the  National  Gallery;  and  it  is  a 
curious  fact,  as  showing  the  estimation  in  which  any- 
thing connected  with  Walton  is  held  in  the  present 
day,  that  the  lord  of  the  manor  in  which  Dr.  Hawes 
resided,  laid  claim  to  this  portrait  as  a  heriot,  though 


PRAISE  OF  ALE.  83 

not  successfully.  Dr.  Hawes  also  bequeathed  the 
greater  portion  of  his  library  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter 
of  Salisbury;  and  his  executor  and  friend  presented 
the  celebrated  praj'er-book,  which  was  Walton's,  to 
Mr.  Pickering,  the  publisher.  The  watch  which 
belonged  to  AValton's  connexion,  the  excellent  Bishop 
Ken,  has  been  presented  to  his  amiable  biographer, 
the  Rev.  "VV.  Lisle  Bowles. 

Walton  died  at  the  house  of  his  son-in-law,  Dr. 
Hawkins,  at  Winchester.  He  was  buried  in  Winches- 
ter Cathedral,  in  the  south  aisle,  called  Prior  Silk- 
stead's  Chapel.  A  large  black  marble  slab  is  placed 
over  his  remains  ;  and,  to  use  the  poetical  language  of 
Mr.  Bowles,  "  the  morning  sunshine  falls  directly  on 
it,  reminding  the  contemplative  man  of  the  mornings 
when  he  was,  for  so  many  years,  up  and  abroad  with 
his  angle,  on  the  banks  of  the  neighbouring  stream." 


PRAISE    OF   ALE. 
Dk.  Stiix,  though  Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells,  seems 
not  to  have  been  over  fond  of  water;  for  th^s  he 
sings : — 

"  A  stoup  of  ale,  then,  cannot  fail, 
To  cheer  both  heart  and  soul ; 
It  hath  a  charm,  and  without  harm 

Can  make  a  lame  man  whole. 
For  he  who  thinks,  and  water  drinks, 

Is  never  worth  a  dump  : 
Then  fill  your  cup,  and  drink  it  up, 
May  he  be  made  a  pump." 


84  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

DANGEROUS   FOOLS. 

Sydney  Smith  writes : — ^If  men  are  to  be  fools,  it 
were  better  that  they  were  fools  in  little  matters  than 
in  great ;  dulness,  turned  up  with  temerity,  is  a  livery 
all  the  worse  for  the  facings ;  and  the  most  tremen* 
dous  of  all  things  is  a  magnanimous  dunce. 


BULWERS  POMPEIAN  DRAWING-ROOM. 
In  1841,  the  author  of  Pelham  lived  in  Charles-street, 
Berkeley-square,  in  a  small  house,  which  he  fitted  up 
after  his  own  taste  ;  and  an  oddmelee  of  the  classic  and 
the  baronial  certain  of  the  rooms  presented.  One  of 
the  drawing-rooms,  we  remember,  was  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan stj'^le,  with  an  imitative  oak  ceiling,  bristled 
with  pendents ;  and  this  room  opened  into  another 
apartment,  a  fac-simile  of  a  chamber  which  Bulwer 
had  visited  at  Pompeii,  with  vases,  candelabra,  and 
other  furniture  to  correspond. 

James  Smith  has  left  a  few  notes  of  his  visit  here : 
"  Our  host,"  he  says,  "  lighted  a  perfumed  pastile, 
modelled  from  Vesuvius.  As  soon  as  the  cone  of  the 
mountain  began  to  blaze,  I  found  myself  an  inhabitant 
of  the  devoted  city ;  and,  as  Pliny  the  elder,  thus  ad- 
dressed Bulwer,  my  supposed  nephew : — '  Our  fate 
is  accomplished,  nephew !  Hand  me  yonder  volume ! 
I  shall  die  as  a  student  in  my  vocation.  Do  thou 
hasten  to  take  refuge  on  board  the  fleet  at  Mise- 
num.  Yonder  cloud  of  hot  ashes  chides  thy  longer 
delay.     Feel   no    alarm    for   me;   I    shall   live    in 


STERNE'S  SERMONS.  85 

story.  The  author  of  PelJiam  will  rescue  my  name 
from  oblivion.'  Pliny  the  younger  made  me  a  low 
bow,  &c."  We  strongly  suspect  James  of  quizzing 
"  our  host."  He  noted,  by  the  way,  in  the  chamber 
were  the  busts  of  Hebe,  Laura,  Petrarch,  Dante,  and 
,  other  worthies ;  Laura  like  our  Queen. 


STERNE  S    SERMONS. 

Sterne's  sermons  are,  in  general,  very  short,  which 
circumstance  gave  rise  to  the  following  joke  at  Bull's 
Library,  at  Bath  : — A  footman  had  been  sent  by  his 
lady  to  purchase  one  of  Smallridge's  sermons,  when, 
by  mistake,  he  asked  for  a  small  religious  sermon.  The 
bookseller  being  puzzled  how  to  reply  to  his  request, 
a  gentleman  present  suggested,  "  Give  him  one  of 
Sterne's." 

It  has  been  observed,  that  if  Sterne  had  never  writ- 
ten one  line  more  than  his  picture  of  the  mournful 
cottage,  towards  the  conclusion  of  his  fifth  sermon, 
we  might  cheerfully  indulge  the  devout  hope  that  the 
recording  angel,  whom  he  once  invoked,  will  have 
blotted  out  many  of  his  imperfections. 


"TOM  HILL." 
A  FEW  days  before  the  close  of  1840,  London  lost 
one  of  its  choicest  spirits,  and  humanity  one  of  her 
kindest-hearted  sons,  in  the  death  of  Thomas  Hill,  Esq. 
— "  Tom  Hill,"  as  he  was  called  by  all  who  loved  and 


86  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

tnew  him.  His  life  exemplified  one  venerable  pro- 
verb, and  disproved  another ;  he  was  born  in  May, 
1760,  and  was,  consequently,  in  his  81st  year,  and 
'*  as  old  as  the  hills ;"  having  led  a  long  life  and  a 
merry  one.  He  was  originally  a  drysalter  ;  but  about 
the  year  1810,  having  sustained  a  severe  loss  by  a 
speculation  in  indigo,  he  retired  upon  the  remains  of 
his  property  to  chambers  in  the  Adelphi,  where  he 
died;  his  physician  remarking  to  him,  "I  can  do  no 
more  for  you — I  have  done  all  I  can.  I  cannot  cure 
age." 

Hill,  when  in  business  at  the  unlettered  Queen- 
hithe,  found  leisure  to  accumulate  a  fine  collection  of 
books,  chiefly  old  poetry,  which  afterwards,  when  mis- 
fortune overtook  him,  was  valued  at  6000/.  Hill  was 
likewise  a  Maecenas :  he  patronized  two  friendless  poets, 
Bloomfield  aud  Kirke  White.  The  Farmers  Boy  of 
the  former  was  read  and  admired  by  him  in  manu- 
script, and  was  recommended  to  a  publisher.  Hill  also 
established  The  Monthly  Mirror^  to  which  Kirke 
White  was  a  contributor.  Hiil  was  the  Hull  of  Hook's 
Gilbert  Gumey.  He  happened  to  know  everything 
liiat  was  going  on  in  all  circles ;  and  was  at  all 
"private  views"  of  exhibitions.  So  especially  was  he 
favoured,  that  a  wag  recorded,  when  asked  whether 
he  had  seen  the  new  comet,  he  replied — "  Pooh !  pooh ! 
I  was  present  at  the  private  view." 

Hill  left  behind  him  an  assemblage  of  literary 
rarities,  which  it  occupied  a  clear  week  to  sell  by 
auction.  Among  them  was  Garrick's  cup,  formed 
from  the  mulberry  tree  planted  by  Shakespeare  in  his 


TYCHO  BRAHES  NOSE.  87 

garden  at  New  Place,  Stratford-upon-Avon ;  this  pro- 
duced forty  guineas.  A  small  vase  and  pedestal, 
carved  from  the  same  mulberry- tree,  and  presented  to 
Garrick,  v^'as  sold  with  a  coloured  drawing  of  it,  for 
ten  guineas.  And  a  block  of  wood,  cut  from  the 
celebrated  willow  planted  by  Pope,  at  his  villa  at 
Twickenham,  brought  one  guinea. 


TYCHO   BRAHE  S    NOSE. 

Sir  David  Brewster  relates  that  in  the  year  1566, 
an  accident  occurred  to  Tycho  Brahe,  at  Wittenberg, 
which  had  nearly  deprived  him  of  his  life.  On  the 
10th  of  December,  Tycho  had  a  quarrel  with  a  noble 
countryman,  Manderupius  Rasbergius,  and  they  parted 
ill  friends.  On  the  27th  of  the  same  month,  they  met 
again  ;  and  having  renewed  their  quarrel,  they  agreed 
to  settle  their  differences  by  the  sword.  They  ac- 
cordingly met  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the 
29th,  and  fought  in  total  darkness.  In  this  blind 
combat,  Manderupius  cut  off  the  whole  of  the  front  of 
Tycho's  nose,  and  it  was  fortunate  for  astronomy  that 
his  more  valuable  organs  were  defended  by  so  faithful 
an  outpost.  The  quarrel,  which  is  said  to  have 
originated  in  a  difference  of  opinion  respecting  their 
mathematical  attainments,  terminated  here ;  and  Tycho 
repaired  his  loss  by  cementing  upon  his  face  a  nose  of 
gold  and  silver,  which  is  said  to  have  formed  a  good 
imitation  of  the  original.  Thus,  Tycho  was,  indeed, 
a  "  Martyr  of  Science." 


88  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

FOOTE'S  WOODEN  LEG. 
Geokge  Colman,  the  younger,  notes : — "  There  is  no 
Shakspeare  or  Roscius  upon  record  who,  like  Foote, 
supported  a  theatre  for  a  series  of  years  by  his  own 
acting,  in  his  own  writings  ;  and  for  ten  years  of  the 
time,  upon  a  wooden  leg !  This  prop  to  his  person  I 
once  saw  standing  by  his  bedside,  ready  dressed  in  a 
handsome  silk  stocking,  with  a  polished  shoe  and  gold 
buckle,  awaiting  the  owner's  getting  up :  it  had  » 
kind  of  tragic,  comical  appearance,  and  I  leave  to  in» 
veterate  wags  the  ingenuity  of  punning  upon  a  Foote 
in  bed,  and  a  leg  out  of  it.  The  proxy  for  a  limb 
thus  decorated,  though  ludicrous,  is  too  strong  a  re- 
minder of  amputation  to  be  very  laughable.  His  un- 
dressed supporter  was  the  common  wooden  stick, 
which  was  not  a  little  injurious  to  a  well-kept  pleasure- 
ground.  I  remember  following  him  after  a  shower  of 
rain,  upon  a  nicely  rolled  terrace,  in  which  he  stumped 
a  deep  round  hole  at  every  other  step  he  took,  till  it 
appeared  as  if  the  gardener  had  been  there  with  his 
dibble,  preparing,  against  all  horticultural  practice,  to 
plant  a  long  row  of  cabbages  in  a  gravel  walk." 


EIVAL    REMEMBRANCE. 

Mr.  Gifford  to  Mr.  Hazlitt. 
"What  we  read  from  your  pen,  we  remember  no 
more." 

Mr.  Hazlitt  to  Mr.  Gifford. 
"  What  we  read  from  your  pen,  we  remember  before.'' 


JUNIUS'S  LETTERS.  89 

WHO  WROTE  "JUNIUS'S  LETTERS"? 
This  question  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  answered. 
In  1812,  Dr.  Mason  Good,  in  an  essay  he  wrote  on  the 
question,  passed  in  review  all  the  persons  who  had 
then  been  suspected  of  writing  these  celebrated  letters. 
They  are,  Charles  Lloyd  and  John  Roberts,  originally 
treasury  clerks  ;  Samuel  Dyer,  a  learned  man,  and  a 
friend  of  Burke  and  Johnson  ;  William  Gerard  Hamil- 
ton, familiarly  known  as  "  Single-speech  Hamilton  ;" 
Mr.  Burke ;  Dr.  Butler,  late  Bishop  of  Hereford  ;  the 
Rev.  Philip  Rosenhagen ;  Major-General  Lee,  who 
went  over  to  the  Americans,  and  took  an  active  part 
in  their  contest  with  the  mother-country ;  John 
Wilkes  ;  Hugh  IMacaulay  Boyd ;  John  Dunning, 
Lord  Ashburton ;  Henry  Flood ;  and  Lord  George 
Sackville. 

Since  this  date,  in  1813,  John  Roche  published  an 
Inquiry,  in  which  he  persuaded  himself  that  Burke 
was  the  author.  In  the  same  year  there  appeared 
three  other  publications  on  Junius :  these  were,  the 
Attempt  of  the  Rev.  J.  B.  Blakeway,  to  trace  them  to 
John  Home  Tooke;  next  were  the  "Facts"  of  Thomas 
Girdlestone,  M.D.,  to  prove  that  General  Lee  was  the 
author ;  and,  thirdly,  a  work  put  forth  by  Mrs.  Olivia 
Wilmot  Serres,  in  the  following  confident  terms  : — 
"  Life  of  the  Author  of  Junius' s  Letters, — the  Rev.  J. 
Wilmot,  D.D.,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Oxford  ;" 
and,  like  most  bold  attempts,  this  work  attracted  some 
notice  and  discussion. 

In  1815,   the  Letters  were  attributed  to  Richard 


90  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Glover,  the  poet  of  Leonidas ;  and  this  improbable  idea 
was  followed  by  another,  assigning  the  authorship  of 
the  Letters  to  the  Duke  of  Portland,  in  1816.  In  the 
same  year  appeared  "  Arguments  and  Facts,"  to  show 
that  John  Louis  de  Lolme,  author  of  the  famous  Essay 
on  the  Constitution  of  England,  was  the  writer  of  these 
anonymous  epistles.  In  1816,  too,  appeared  Mr.  John 
Taylor's  "  Junius  Identified,"  advocating  the  claims  of 
Sir  Philip  Francis  so  successfully  that  the  question 
was  generally  considered  to  be  settled.  Mr.  Taylor's 
opinion  was  supported  by  Edward  Dubois,  Esq.,  for- 
merly the  confidential  friend  and  private  secretary  of 
Sir  Philip,  who,  in  common  with  Lady  Francis,  con- 
stantly entertained  the  conviction  that  his  deceased 
patron  was  identical  with  Junius. 

In  1817,  George  Chalmere,  F.S.A.,  advocated  the 
pretensions  of  Hugh  Macaulay  Boyd  to  the  authorship 
of  Junius.  In  1825,  Mr.  George  Coventry  maintained 
with  great  ability  that  Lord  George  Sackville  was 
Junius ;  and  two  writers  in  America  adopted  this  theory. 

Thus  was  the  whole  question  re-opened  ;  and,  in 
1828,  Mr.  E.  H.  Barker,  of  Thetford,  refuted  the 
claims  of  Lord  George  Sackville  and  Sir  Philip 
Francis,  and  advocated  those  of  Charles  Lloyd,  private 
secretary  to  the  Hon.  George  Grenville.* 

In  1841,  Mr.  N.  W.  Simons,  of  the  British  Museum, 
refuted  the  supposition  that  Sir  Philip  Francis  was 

•  Supported  by  the  following  note,  written  by  Dr.  Parr,  In  his 
copy  of"  The  Letters  of  Junius  :  " — "  The  writer  of  '  Junius' 
was  3Ir.  Lloyd,  secretary  to  George  Grenville,  and  brother  to 
Philip  Lloyd,  Dean  of  Norwich.  This  will  one  day  or  other 
be  generally  acknowledged. — S.  P." 


JUNIU^S  LETTERS.  91 

directly  or  indirectly  concerned  in  the  writing ;  and, 
in  the  same  year,  appeared  M.  Jaques's  review  of  the 
controversy,  in  which  he  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
Lord  George  Sackville  composed  the  Letters,  and  that 
Sir  Philip  Francis  was  his  amanuensis,  thus  combining 
the  theory  of  Mr.  Taylor  with  that  of  Mr.  Coventry. 

The  question  was  reviewed  and  revived  in  a  volume 
published  by  Mr.  Britton,F.S.A.,in  June  1848,  entitled 
"  The  Authorship  of  the  Letters  of  Junius  Elucidated;" 
in  which  is  advocated  with  great  care  the  opinion  that 
the  Letters  were,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  joint  produc- 
tions of  Lieut.-Colonel  Isaac  Barre,  M.P.,  Lord  Shel- 
burne,  (afterwards  Marquess  of  Lansdowne,)  and 
Dunning,  Lord  Ashburton.  Of  these  three  persons  the 
late  Sir  Francis  Baring  commissioned  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  in  1784-5,  to  paint  portraits  in  one  picture, 
which  is  regarded  as  evidence  of  joint  authorship. 

Only  a  week  before  his  death,  1804,  the  Marquess  of 
Lansdowne  was  personally  appealed  to  on  the  subject 
of  Junius,  by  Sir  Richard  Phillips.  In  conversation, 
the  Marquess  said,  "  No,  no,  I  am  not  equal  to  Junius ; 
I  could  not  be  the  author  ;  but  the  grounds  of  secrecy 
are  now  so  far  removed  by  death  (Dunning  and  Barre 
were  at  that  time  dead),  and  change  of  circumstances, 
that  it  is  unnecessary  the  author  of  Junius  should  much 
longer  be  unknown.  The  world  is  curious  about  him,  and 
I  could  make  a  very  interesting  publication  on  the  sub- 
ject. I  knew  Junius,  and  /  know  all  about  the  writing 
and  production  of  these  Letters."  The  Marquess 
added,  "  If  I  live  over  the  summer,  which,  however,  I 
don't  expect,  I  promise  you  a  very  interesting  pamphlet 


92  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

about  Junius.  I  will  put  my  name  to  it ;  I  will 
set  the  question  at  rest  for  ever."  The  death  of  the 
Marquess,  however,  occurred  in  a  week.  In  a  letter  to 
the  MonC/ilj/  Magazine,  July  1813,  the  son  of  the  Mar- 
quess of  Lansdowne  says  : — "  It  is  not  impossible  my 
father  may  have  been  acquainted  with  the  fact ;  but 
perhaps  he  was  under  some  obligation  to  secrecy,  as  he 
never  made  any  communication  to  me  on  the  subject." 
Lord  Mahon  (now  Earl  Stanhope)  at  length  and 
with  minuteness  enters,  in  his  History,  into  a  vindica- 
tion of  the  claims  of  Sir  Philip  Francis,  grounding 
his  partisanship  on  the  close  similarity  of  handwriting 
established  by  careful  comparison  of  facsimiles  ;  the 
likeness  of  the  style  of  Sir  Philip's  speeches  in  Parlia- 
ment to  that  of  Junius — biting,  pithy,  full  of  antithesis 
and  invective ;  the  tenderness  and  bitterness  displayed 
by  Junius  towards  persons  to  whom  Sir  Philip  stood 
well  or  ill  affected ;  the  correspondence  of  the  dates 
of  the  letters  with  those  of  certain  movements  of  Sir 
Philip ;  and  the  evidence  of  Junius^  close  acquaint- 
ance with  the  War  Office,  where  Sir  Philip  held  a 
post.  It  seems  generally  agreed  that  the  weight  of 
proof  is  on  the  side  of  Sir  Philip  Francis ;  but  there 
will  always  be  found  adherents  of  other  names — as 
O'Connell,  in  the  following  passage,  of  Burke  : — 

"  It  is  my  decided  opinion,"  said  O'Connell,  "that  Edmund 
Bnrke  was  the  author  of  the  '  Letters  of  Junius.'  There  are 
many  considerations  which  compel  me  to  form  that  opinion. 
Burke  was  the  only  man  who  made  that  figure  in  the  world  which 
the  author  of  '  Junius '  must  have  made,  if  engaged  in  public 
life  ;  and  the  entire  of  '  Junius's  Letters '  evinces  that  close  ac- 
quaintance with  the  springs  of  political  machinery  which  eo 


LITERARY  COFFEE-HOUSES.  93 

man  could  possess  unless  actively  engaged  in  politics.  Again , 
Burke  was  fond  of  cliemical  similes ;  now  chemical  similes  are 
frequent  in  Junius.  Again ;  Burke  was  an  Irishman ;  now 
Junius,  speaking  of  the  Government  of  Ireland,  twice  calls  it 
'  the  Castle,'  a  familiar  phrase  amongst  Irish  politicians,  but  one 
which  an  Englishman,  in  those  days,  would  never  have  used. 
Again;  Burke  had  this  peculiarity  in  writing,  that  he  often  wrote 
many  words  without  taking  the  pen  from  the  paper.  Tlie  very 
same  peculiarity  existed  in  the  manuscripts  of  Junius,  although 
they  were  written  in  a  feigned  hand.  Again  ;  it  may  be  said  that 
the  style  is  not  Burke's.  In  reply,  I  would  say  tliat  Burke  was 
master  of  many  styles.  His  work  on  natural  society,  in  imitation 
of  Lord  Bolingbroke,  is  as  different  in  point  of  style  from  liis  work 
on  the  Frencli  Revolution,  as  bothare  from  the '  Letters  of  Junius.' 
Again  ;  Junius  speaks  of  the  King's  insanity  as  a  divine  visita- 
tion ;  Burke  said  the  very  same  thing  in  tlie  House  of  Commons. 
Again  ;  had  any  one  of  the  other  men  to  whom  the  '  Letters' 
are,  with  any  show  of  probability,  ascribed,  been  really  the  author, 
such  author  would  have  had  no  reason  for  disowning  the  book,  or 
remaining  incognito.  Any  one  of  them  but  Burke  would  have 
claimed  the  autliorship  and  fame — and  proud  fame.  But  Burke 
had  a  very  cogent  reason  for  remaining  incognito.  In  claiming 
Junius  he  would  have  claimed  his  own  condemnation  and  dis- 
honour, for  Burke  died  a  pensioner.  Burke  was,  moreover,  the 
only  pensioner  who  had  the  commanding  talent  displayed  in  the 
writings  of  Junius.  Now,  when  I  lay  all  these  considerations 
together,  and  especially  wlien  I  reflect  that  a  cogent  reason  exists 
for  Burke's  silence  as  to  his  o^vn  authorship,  I  confess  I  think 
I  have  got  a  presumptive  proof  of  the  very  strongest  nature, 
that  Burke  was  the  writer."  * 


LITERARY   COFFEE-HOUSES   IN   THE    LAST 

CENTURY. 

Three  of  the  most  celebrated  resorts  of  the  literati  of 

tne  last  century  were  WiWs  Coffee-house,  No.  23, 

on  the  north  side   of  Great  Kussell-street,   Covent 

*  Personal  Recollections  of  the  late  Daniel  O'Connell,  M.P. 
By  William  J.  O'N.  Daunt. 


91  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Garden,  at  the  end  of  Bow-street.  This  was  the  favou« 
rite  resort  of  Dry  den,  who  had  here  his  own  chair,  in 
winter  by  the  fireside,  in  summer  in  the  balcony :  the 
company  met  in  the  first  floor,  and  there  smoked ;  and 
the  young  beaux  and  wits  were  sometimes  honoured 
with  a  pinch  out  of  Dryden's  snuff-box.  Will's  was 
the  resort  of  men  of  genius  till  1710:  it  was  subse- 
quently occupied  by  a  perfumer. 

TonCs,  No.  17,  Great  Russell-street,  had  nearly  700 
subscribers,  at  a  guinea  a-head,  from  1764  to  1768,  and 
had  its  card,  conversation,  and  coffee-rooms,  where 
assembled  Dr.  Johnson,  Garrick,  Murphy,  Goldsmith, 
Sir  Joshua  RejTiolds,  Foote,  and  other  men  of  talent : 
the  tables  and  books  of  the  club  were  not  many  years 
since  preserved  in  the  house,  the  first  floor  of  which 
was  then  occupied  by  Mr.  Webster,  the  medallist. 

Button's,  "  over  against"  Tom's,  was  the  receiving- 
house  for  contributions  to  The  Guardian,  in  a  lion- 
head  box,  the  aperture  for  which  remains  in  the  wall 
to  mark  the  place.  Button  had  been  servant  to  Lady 
Warwick,  whom  Addison  married ;  and  the  house 
was  frequented  by  Pope,  Steele,  Swift,  Arbuthnot, 
and  Addison.  The  lion's  head  for  a  letter-box,  "  the 
best  head  in  England,"  was  set  up  in  imitation  of  the 
celebrated  lion  at  Venice  :  it  was  removed  from  But- 
ton's to  the  Shakspeare's  Head,  under  the  arcade  in 
Covent  Garden  ;  and  in  1751,  was  placed  in  the  Bed- 
ford, next  door.  This  lion's  head  is  now  treasured  as 
a  relic  by  the  Bedford  family. 


"MY  GRANDMOTHER'S  REVIEW:'     95 

LORD    BYEON   AND   "  MY    GEANDMOTHEE's 

EEVIEW." 

At  the  close  of  the  first  canto  of  Don  Juan,  its  nobJe 

author,   by   way   of  propitiating  the  reader  for   the 

morality  of  his  poem,  says  : — 

"  The  public  approbation  I  expect, 

And  beg  they'll  take  my  word  about  the  moral, 
Wliicli  I  with  their  amusement  will  connect. 

As  children  cutting  teeth  receive  a  coral ; 
Meantime,  they'll  doubtless  please  to  recollect 

My  epical  pretensions  to  the  laurel ; 
For  fear  some  prudisli  reader  should  grow  skittish, 

I've  bribed  my  Grauduiother's  Keview— the  British. 

I  sent  it  in  a  letter  to  the  editor, 

"Who  thank'd  me  duly  by  return  of  post — 
I'm  for  a  handsome  article  his  creditor  ; 

Yet  if  my  gentle  muse  he  please  to  roast, 
And  break  a  promise  after  iiaving  made  it  her, 

Denying  the  receipt  of  what  it  cost. 
And  smear  his  page  with  gall  instead  of  honey. 

All  I  can  say  is — that  he  had  the  money." 

Canto  I.  St.  ccix.  ccx. 

Now,  "  the  British"  was  a  certain  staid  and  grave 
high-church  review,  the  editor  of  which  received  the 
poet's  imputation  of  bribery  as  a  serious  accusation  ; 
and,  accordingly,  in  his  next  number  after  the  pub- 
lication of  Don  Juan,  there  appeared  a  postscript,  in 
which  the  receipt  of  any  bribe  was  stoutly  denied,  and 
the  idea  of  such  connivance  altogether  repudiated ;  the 
editor  adding  that  he  should  continue  to  exercise  his 
own  judgment  as  to  the  merits  of  Lord  Byron,  as  he 
had  hitherto  done  in  every  instance  I     However,  the 


96  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

aifair  was  too  ludicrous  to  be  at  once  altogether 
dropped ;  and,  so  long  as  the  prudish  publication  was 
in  existence,  it  enjoyed  the  sobriquet  of  "  My  Grand- 
mother's Review." 

By  the  way,  there  is  another  hoax  connected  with 
this  poem.  One  day  an  old  gentleman  gravely  in- 
quired of  a  printseller  for  a  portrait  of  "Admiral 
Noah" — to  illustrate  Don  Juan  ! 


WALPOLE  S  WAY  TO  WIN  THEM. 

Sir  Robert  Walpole,  in  one  of  his  letters,  thus 
describes  the  relations  of  a  skilful  Minister  with  an 
accommodating  Parliament — the  description,  it  may 
be  said,  having,  by  lapse  of  time,  acquired  the  merit 
of  general  inapplicability  to  the  present  state  of 
things  : — "  My  dear  friend,  there  is  scarcely  a  member 
whose  purse  I  do  not  know  to  a  sixpence,  and  whose 
very  soul  almost  I  could  not  purchase  at  the  offer. 
The  reason  former  Ministers  have  been  deceived  in 
this  matter  is  evident — they  never  considered  the 
temper  of  the  people  they  had  to  deal  with.  I  have 
known  a  minister  so  weak  as  to  offer  an  avaricious  old 
rascal  a  star  and  garter,  and  attempt  to  bribe  a  young 
rogue,  who  set  no  value  upon  money,  with  a  lucra- 
tive employment.  I  pursue  methods  as  opposite  as 
the  poles,  and  therefore  my  administration  has  been 
attended  with  a  different  effect."  "Patriots,"  else- 
where says  Walpole,  "  spring  up  like  mushrooms.  I 
could  raise  fifty  of  them  within  four-and-twenty  hours. 
I  have  raised  many  of  them  in  one  night.     It  is  but 


DR.  JOHNSON'S  CRITICISMS.  97 

refusing  to  gratify  an  unreasonable  or  insolent  de- 
mand, and  up  starts  a  patriot." 


DR.  Johnson's  criticisms. 

Johnson  decided  literary  questions  like  a  lawyer,  not 
like  a  legislator.  He  never  examined  foundations 
where  a  point  was  already  ruled.  His  whole  code  of 
criticism  rested  on  pure  assumption,  for  which  he  some- 
times gave  a  precedent  or  authority,  but  rarely  troubled 
himself  to  give  a  reason  drawn  from  the  nature  of 
things.  He  judged  of  all  works  of  the  imagination  by 
the  standard  established  among  his  own  contem- 
poraries. Though  he  allowed  Homer  to  have  been  a 
greater  man  than  Virgil,  he  seems  to  have  thought  the 
.S^neid  to  have  been  a  greater  poem  than  the  Iliad. 
Indeed,  he  well  might  have  thought  so ;  for  he  pre- 
ferred Pope's  Uiad  to  Homer's.  He  pronounced  that 
after  Hoole's  translation  of  Tasso,  Fairfax's  would 
hardly  be  reprinted.  He  could  see  no  merit  in  our 
fine  old  English  ballads,  and  always  spoke  with  the 
most  provoking  contempt  of  Dr.  Percy's  fondness  for 
them. 

Of  all  the  great  original  works  which  appeared 
during  his  time,  Richardson's  novels  alone  excited  his 
admiration.  He  could  see  Kttle  or  no  merit  in  Tom 
Jones,  in  Gulliver's  Travels,  or  in  Tristram  Shandy. 
To  Thomson's  Castle  of  Indolence  he  vouchsafed  only 
a  line  of  cold  commendation^-of  commendation  much 
colder  than  what  he  has  bestowed  on  The  Creation  of 
G 


98  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

that  portentous  bore,  Sir  Richard  Blackmore.  Gray 
was,  in  his  dialect,  a  barren  rascal.  Churchill  was  a 
blockhead.  The  contempt  which  he  felt  for  IVIacpher- 
8on  was,  indeed,  just ;  but  it  was,  we  suspect,  just  by 
by  chance.  He  criticized  Pope's  epitaphs  excellently. 
But  his  observations  on  Shakspeare's  plays,  and  Milton's 
poems,  seem  to  us  as  wretched  as  if  they  had  been 
written  by  Rymer  himself,  whom  we  take  to  have 
been  the  worst  critic  that  ever  lived. 


GIBBON  S   HOUSE,   AT   LAUSANNE 

The  house  of  Gibbon,  in  which  he  completed  his 
'  Decline  and  Fall,"  is  in  the  lower  part  of  the  town 
of  Lausanne,  behind  the  church  of  St.  Francis,  and  on 
the  right  of  the  road  leading  down  to  Ouchy.  Both 
the  house  and  the  garden  have  been  much  changed. 
The  wall  of  the  Hotel  Gibbon  occupies  the  site  of  his 
summer-house,  and  the  herceau  walk  has  been  de- 
stroyed to  make  room  for  the  garden  of  the  hotel ; 
but  the  terrace  looking  over  the  lake,  and  a  few 
acacias,  remain. 

Gibbon's  record  of  the  completion  of  his  great  labour 
is  very  impressive,  "  It  was  on  the  day,  or  rather  the 
niglit,  of  the  27th  of  June,  1787,  between  the  hours  of 
eleven  and  twelve,  that  I  wrote  the  last  line  of  the  last 
page,  in  a  summer-house  in  my  garden.  After  laying 
down  my  pen,  I  took  several  turns  in  a  berceau,  or 
covered  walk  of  acacias,  which  commands  a  prospect 
of  the  country,  the  lake,  and  the  mountains.     The  air 


ORIGIN  OF  "  BOZ:'  99 

was  temperate,  the  sky  was  serene,  the  silver  orb  of 
the  moon  was  reflected  from  the  waves,  and  all  nature 
was  silent." 

At  a  little  inn  at  Morges,  about  two  miles  distant 
from  Lausanne,  Lord  Byron  wrote  the  Prisoner  of 
Chillon,  in  the  short  space  of  two  days,  during  which 
he  was  detained  here  by  bad  weather,  June  1816  : 
"thus  adding  one  more  deathless  association  to  the 
already  immortalized  localities  of  the  Lake." 


OEIGTN  OF  "  BOZ."  (dICKENS.) 
A  FELLOW  passenger  with  Mr.  Dickens  in  the 
Britannia  steam-ship,  across  the  Atlantic,  inquired  of 
the  author  the  origin  of  his  signature,  "Boz."  Mr. 
Dickens  replied  that  he  had  a  little  brother  who  re- 
sembled so  much  the  Moses  in  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield, 
that  he  used  to  call  him  Moses  also ;  but  a  younger 
girl,  who  could  not  then  articulate  plainly,  was  in  the 
habit  of  calling  him  Bozie  or  Boz.  This  simple  cir- 
cumstance made  him  assume  that  name  in  the  first 
article  he  risked  to  the  public,  and  therefore  he  con- 
tinued the  name,  as  the  first  effort  was  approved  of. 


BOSWELL's    "  LIFE    OF   JOHNSON." 
Sib  John  Malcolm  once  asked  "Warren  Hastings, 
who  was  a  contemporary  and  companion  of  Dr.  John- 
son and  Bos  well,  what  was  his  real  estimation  of 
Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson  ?     "  Sir,"  replied  Hastings, 


100  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

"it  is  the  dirtiest  book  in  my  library;"  then  pro- 
ceeding, he  added :  "  I  knew  Boswell  intimately ;  and 
I  well  remember,  when  his  book  first  made  its  ap- 
pearance, Boswell  was  so  full  of  it,  that  he  could 
neither  think  nor  talk  of  anything  else  ;  so  much  so, 
that  meeting  Lord  Thurlow  hurrying  through  Par- 
liament-street to  get  to  the  House  of  Lords,  where  an 
important  debate  was  expected,  for  which  he  was 
already  too  late,  Boswell  had  the  temerity  to  stop  and 
accost  him  with  "  Have  you  read  my  book  ?"  "  Yes," 
replied  Lord  Thurlow,  with  one  of  his  strongest 
curses,  "  every  word  of  it ;  I  could  not  help  it." 


PATRONAGE    OF   AUTHORS. 

In  the  reigns  of  William  IIL,  of  Anne,  and  of  George 
L,  even  such  men  as  Congreve  and  Addison  could 
scarcely  have  been  able  to  live  like  gentlemen  by  the 
mere  sale  of  their  writings.  But  the  deficiency  of  the 
natural  demand  for  literature  was,  at  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  more  than  made  up  by  the  artificial  encou- 
ragement— by  a  vast  system  of  bounties  and  premiums. 
There  was,  perhaps,  never  a  time  at  which  the  rewards 
of  literary  merit  were  so  splendid — at  which  men  who 
could  write  well  found  such  easy  admittance  into  the 
most  distinguished  society,  and  to  the  highest  honours 
of  the  state.  The  chiefs  of  both  the  great  parties  into 
which  the  kingdom  was  divided,  patronized  literature 
with  emulous  munificence. 
Congreve,  when  he  had  scarcely  attained  his  majo- 


PA TRONA GE  OF  A  UTHORS.  101 

rity,  was  rewarded  for  his  first  comedy  with  places 
which  made  him  independent  for  life.  Rowe  was  not 
only  poet  laureate,  but  land-surveyor  of  the  Customs 
in  the  port  of  London,  clerk  of  the  council  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  and  secretary  of  the  Presentations  to 
the  Lord  Chancellor.  Hughes  was  secretary  to  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Peace.  Ambrose  Phillips  was 
judge  of  the  Prerogative  Court  in  Ireland.  Locke  was 
Commissioner  of  Appeals  and  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 
Newton  was  Master  of  the  Mint.  Stepney  and  Prior 
were  employed  in  embassies  of  high  dignity  and  im- 
portance. Gay,  who  commenced  life  as  apprentice  to 
a  silk-mercer,  became  a  secretary  of  Legation  at 
five-and-twenty.  It  was  to  a  poem  on  the  death  of 
Charles  II.,  and  to  "  the  City  and  Country  Mouse," 
that  Montague  owed  his  introduction  into  public  life, 
his  earldom,  his  garter,  and  his  auditorship  of  the 
Exchequer.  Swift,  but  for  the  unconquerable  pre- 
judice of  the  queen,  would  have  been  a  bishop.  Ox- 
ford, with  his  white  staff  in  his  hand,  passed  through 
the  crowd  of  his  suitors  to  welcome  Parnell,  when 
that  ingenious  writer  deserted  the  Whigs.  Steele  was 
a  Commissioner  of  Stamps,  and  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment. Arthur  Mainwaring  was  a  Commissioner  of 
the  Customs,  and  Auditor  of  the  Imprest.  Tickell 
was  secretary  to  the  Lords  Justices  of  Ireland.  Addi- 
son was  Secretary  of  State. 

But  soon  after  the  succession  of  the  throne  of  Hanover, 
a  change  took  place.  The  supreme  power  passed 
to  a  man  who  cared  little  for  poetry  or  eloquence. 
Walpole  paid  little  attention  to  books,  and  felt  little 


102  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

respect  for  authors.  One  of  the  coarse  jokes  of  his 
friend,  Sir  Charles  Hanbury  Williams,  was  far  more 
pleasing  to  him  than  Thomson's  Seasons  or  Richard- 
ion's  Pamela. 


LEARNING  FEENCH. 
When  Bruramell  was  obliged  by  want  of  money,  and 
debt,  and  all  that,  to  retire  to  France,  he  knew  no 
French ;  and  having  obtained  a  grammar  for  the  purpose 
of  study,  his  friend  Scrope  Davies  was  asked  what  pro- 
gress Brummell  had  made  in  French.  He  responded, 
that  Brummell  had  been  stopped,  like  Buonaparte  in 
Russia,  by  the  Elements. 

"  I  have  put  this  pun  into  Beppo,  (says  Lord  Byron), 
which  is  a  fair  exchange  and  no  robbery,  for  Scrope 
made  his  fortune  at  several  dinners,  (as  be  owned  him- 
self,) by  repeating  occasionally,  as  his  own,  some  of 
the  buffooneries  with  which  I  had  encountered  him  in 
the  morning." 


JOHNSON  S  CLUB-ROOM. 
In  a  paper  in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  we  find  this 
cabinet  picture  : — The  club-room  is  before  us,  and  the 
table,  on  which  stands  the  omelet  for  Nugent,  and  the 
lemons  for  Johnson.  There  are  assembled  those  heads 
which  live  for  ever  on  the  canvas  of  Reynolds.  There 
are  the  spectacles  of  Burke,  and  the  tall  thin  form  of 
Langton;  the  courtly  sneer  of  Beauclerc,  and  th( 
beaming  smile  of  Grarrick  ;  Gibbon  tapping  his  snuff- 


DR.  CHALMERS'S  INDUSTRY.        103 

box,  and  Sir  Joshua  with  his  trumpet  in  his  ear.  In 
the  foreground  is  that  strange  figure  which  is  as 
familiar  to  us  as  the  figures  of  those  among  whom  we 
have  been  brought  up — the  gigantic  body,  the  huge 
massy  face,  seamed  with  the  scars  of  disease  ;  the  brown 
coat,  the  black  worsted  stockings,  the  grey  wig,  with 
the  scorched  foretop  ;  the  dirty  hands,  the  nails  bitten 
and  pared  to  the  quick.  We  see  the  eyes  and  nose 
moving  with  convulsive  twitches ;  we  see  the  heavy 
form  rolling  ;  we  hear  it  puffing  ;  and  then  comes  the 
"Why,  sir!"  and  the  "What  then,  sir?"  and  the 
"  No,  sir !"  and  the  "  You  don't  see  your  way  through 
the  question,  sir !" 


DR.    CHALMEES  S    INDUSTEY. 

In  October,  1841,  Dr.  Chalmers  commenced  two 
series  of  biblical  compositions,  which  he  continued 
with  unbroken  regularity  till  the  day  of  his  decease. 
May  31,  ]  847.  Go  where  he  might,  however  he  might 
be  engaged,  each  week-day  had  its  few  verses  read, 
thought  over,  written  upon — forming  what  he  denomi- 
nated "  Horse  Biblical  Quotidianae :"  each  Sabbath- 
day  had  its  two  chapters,  one  in  the  Old  and  the  other 
in  the  New  Testament,  with  the  two  trains  of  medi- 
tative devotion  recorded  to  which  the  reading  of  them 
respectively  gave  birth — forming  what  he  denominated 
"  Horae  Biblicse  Sabbaticae."  When  absent  from  home, 
or  when  the  manuscript  books  in  which  they  were 
ordinarily  inserted  were  not  beside  him,  he  wrote  in 
ikort-band,  carefully  entering  what  was  thus  written 


104  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

in  the  larger  volumes  afterwards.  Not  a  trace  of  haste 
nor  of  the  extreme  pressure  from  without,  to  which 
he  was  so  often  subjected,  is  exhibited  in  the  hand- 
writing of  these  volumes.  There  are  but  few  words 
omitted — scarcely  any  erased.  This  singular  correct- 
ness was  a  general  characteristic  of  his  compositions. 
His  lectures  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Roman*  were 
written  currente  calamo,  in  Glasgow,  during  the  most 
hurried  and  overburthened  period  of  his  life.  And 
when,  many  years  afterwards,  they  were  given  out  to 
be  copied  for  the  press,  scarcely  a  blot,  or  an  erasure, 
or  a  correction,  was  to  be  found  in  them,  and  they  were 
printed  off  exactly  as  they  had  originally  been  written. 

In  preparing  the  "  Horse  Biblicae  Quotidianas," 
Chalmers  had  by  his  side,  for  use  and  reference,  the 
*' Concordance," the  "Pictorial  Bible,"  "Poole's  Synop- 
sis," "Henry's  Commentary,"  and  "Robinson's  Re- 
searches in  Palestine."  These  constituted  what  he  called 
his  "  Biblical  Library."  "  There,"  said  he  to  a  friend, 
pointing,  as  he  spoke,  to  the  above-named  volumes,  as 
they  lay  together  on  his  library-table,  with  a  volume  of 
the  "  Quotidianse,"  in  which  he  had  just  been  writing, 
lying  open  beside  them, — "  There  are  the  books  I  use 
— all  that  is  Biblical  is  there.  I  have  to  do  with  nothing 
besides  in  my  Biblical  study."  To  the  consultation  of 
these  few  volumes  he  throughout  restricted  himself. 

The  whole  of  the  MSS.  were  purchased,  after 
Dr.  Chalmers's  death,  for  a  large  sum  of  money,  by 
Mr.  Thomas  Constable,  of  Edinburgh,  her  Majesty's 
printer;  and  were  in  due  time  given  to,  and  most 
favourably  received  by,  the  public. 


JOHNSON'S  LATEST  CONTEMPORARY.  105 

LATEST  OF   DR.   JOHNSON's    CONTEMPORARIES.* 

In  the  autumn  of  1831,  died  the  Rev.  Dr.  Shaw,  at 
Chesley,  Somersetshire,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three :  he 
is  said  to  have  been  the  last  surviving  friend  of  Dr. 
Johnson . 

On  the  16th  of  January,  in  the  above  year,  died 
Mr.  Richard  Clark,  chamberlain  of  the  City  of  London, 
in  the  ninety-second  year  of  his  age.  At  the  age  of 
fifteen,  he  was  introduced  by  Sir  John  Hawkins  to 
Johnson,  whose  friendship  he  enjoyed  to  the  last  year 
of  the  Doctor's  life.  He  attended  Johnson's  evening 
parties  at  the  Mitre  Tavern,  in  Fleet- street ;  f  where, 
among  other  literary  characters  he  met  Dr.  Percy,  Dr. 
Goldsmith,  and  Dr.  Hawkswortb.  A  substantial  supper 
was  served  at  eight  o'clock ;  the  party  seldom 
separated  till  a  late  hour ;  and  Mr.  Clark  recollected 
that  early  one  morning  he,  with  another  of  the  party, 
accompanied  the  Doctor  to  his  house,  where  Mrs. 
Williams,  then  blind,  made  tea  for  them.  When  Mr. 
Clark  was  sheriff,  he  took  Johnson  to  a  "  Judges' 
Dinner,"  at  the  Old  Bailey ;  the  judges  being  Black- 
stone  and  Eyre.  Mr.  Clark  often  visited  the  Doctor, 
and  met  him  at  dinner-parties ;  and  the  last  time  he 
enjoyed  his  company  was  at  the  Essex  Head  Club, 
of  which,  by  the  Doctor's  invitation,  Clark  became  a 
member. 

*  See,  also,  an  ensuing  page,  120. 

t  Johnson,  by  the  way,  had  a  strange  nervous  feeling,  which 
made  him  uneasy  if  lie  had  not  touched  every  post  between  the 
Mitre  Tavern  and  his  own  lodgings. 


106  BOOKS  AND  A  UTHORS. 

A  SNAIL  DINNER. 
The  chemical  philosophers,  Dr.  Black  and  Dr.  Hutton, 
were  particular  friends,  though  there  was  something 
extremely  opposite  in  their  external  appearance  and 
manner.  Dr.  Black  spoke  with  the  English  pronun- 
ciation, and  with  punctilious  accuracy  of  expression, 
both  in  point  of  matter  and  manner.  The  geologist, 
Dr.  Hutton,  was  the  very  reverse  of  this  :  his  conversa- 
tion was  conducted  in  broad  phrases,  expressed  with 
a  broad  Scotch  accent,  which  often  heightened  the 
humour  of  what  he  said. 

It  chanced  that  the  two  Doctors  had  held  some 
discourse  together  upon  the  folly  of  abstaining  from 
feeding  on  the  testaceous  creatures  of  the  land,  while 
those  of  the  sea  were  considered  as  delicacies.  Where- 
fore not  eat  snails  ?  they  are  known  to  be  nutritious 
and  wholesome,  and  even  sanative  in  some  cases.  The 
epicures  of  old  praised  them  among  the  richest  deli- 
cacies, and  the  Italians  still  esteem  them.  In  short, 
it  was  determined  that  a  gastronomic  experiment 
should  be  made  at  the  expense  of  the  snails.  The  snails 
were  procured,  dieted  for  a  time,  and  then  stewed  for 
the  benefit  of  the  two  philosophers,  who  had  either 
invited  no  guests  to  their  banquet,  or  found  none  who 
relished  in  prospect  the  piece  de  resistance.  A  huge 
dish  of  snails  was  placed  before  them :  still,  philo- 
sophers are  but  men,  after  all ;  and  the  stomachs  of 
both  doctors  began  to  revolt  against  the  experiment. 
Nevertheless,  if  they  looked  with  disgust  on  the  snails, 
they  retained  their  awe  for  each  other,  so  that  each, 


CURRAN'S  IMAGINATION.  107 

conceiving  the  symptoms  of  internal  revolt  peculiar  to 
himself,  began,  with  infinite  exertion,  to  swallow,  in 
very  small  quantities,  the  mess  which  he  internally 
loathed. 

Dr.  Black,  at  length,  showed  the  white  feather,  but 
in  a  very  delicate  manner,  as  if  to  sound  the  opinion  of 
his  messmate.  "  Doctor,"  he  said,  in  his  precise  and  quiet 
manner — "  Doctor — do  you  not  think  that  they  taste 

a  little — a  very  little,  green  ?"  "  D d  green !  d d 

green!  indeed — talc'  them  awa', — tak'  them  awa'!" 
vociferated  Dr.  Ilutton,  starting  up  from  table,  and 
giving  full  vent  to  his  feelings  of  abhorrence.  So  ended 
all  hopes  of  introducing  snails  into  the  modern  cuisine ; 
and  thus  philosophy  can  no  more  cure  a  nausea  thai 
honour  can  set  a  broken  limb. — Sir  Walter  Scott. 


CURRAN  S   IMAGINATION. 

"  Cttrean  !"  (says  Lord  Byron)  "  Curran's  the  man 
who  struck  me  most.  Such  imagination ! — there  never 
was  anything  like  it  that  I  ever  heard  of.  His  published 
life — his  published  speeches,  give  you  no  idea  of  the 
man — none  at  all.  He  was  a  machine  of  imagination, 
as  some  one  said  that  Prior  was  an  epigrammatic  ma- 
chine." Upon  another  occasion,  Byron  said,  "the 
riches  of  Curran's  Irish  imagination  were  exhaustless 
I  have  heard  that  man  speak  more  poetry  than  I  have 
ever  seen  written — though  I  saw  him  seldom,  and  but 
occasionally.  I  saw  him  presented  to  Madame  de 
Stael,  at  Mackintosh's — it  was  the  grand  confluence 
between  the  Rhone  and  the  Saone ;  they  were  both  so 


108  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 


ugly,  that  I  could  not  help  wondering  how 
the  best  intellects  of  France  and  Ireland  could  have 
taken  up  respectively  such  residences." 


COWLEY   AT    CHEETSEY. 

The  poet  Cowley  died  at  the  Porch  House,  Chertsey, 
on  the  21st  of  July,  1667.  There  is  a  curious  letter 
preserved  of  his  condition  when  he  removed  here  from 
Barn  Elms.  It  is  addressed  to  Dr.  Sprat,  dated 
Chertsey,  21  May,  1665,  and  is  as  follows : — 

"  The  first  night  that  I  came  hither  I  caught  so  great  a  cold, 
with  a  defluxion  of  rheum,  as  made  me  keep  my  chamber  ten 
days.  And,  too,  after  had  such  a  bruise  on  my  ribs  with  a  fall, 
that  I  am  yet  unable  to  move  or  turn  myself  in  bed.  This  is 
my  personal  fortune  here  to  begin  with..  And  besides,  I  can  get 
no  money  from  my  tenants,  and  have  my  meadows  eaten  up 
every  night  by  cattle  put  in  by  my  neighbours.  What  thia 
signifies,  or  may  come  to  iu  time,  God  knows  1  if  it  be  ominous, 

it  can  end  in  nothing  but  hanging." "  I  do  hope  to  recover 

my  hurt  so  farre  within  five  or  six  days  (though  it  be  uncertain 
yet  whether  I  shall  ever  recover  it)  as  to  walk  about  again. 
And  then,  methinks,  you  and  I  and  the  Dean  might  be  very 
merry  upon  St.  Ann's  Hill.  You  might  very  conveniently  come 
hither  by  %vay  of  Hami)ton  Town,  lying  there  one  night.  I 
write  this  in  pain,  and  can  say  no  more. — Verbum  tapienti." 

It  is  stated,  by  Sprat,  that  the  last  illness  of  Cowley 
was  owing  to  his  having  taken  cold  through  staying 
too  long  among  his  labourers  in  the  meadows ;  hut,  in 
Spence's  Anecdotes  we  are  informed,  (on  the  authority 
of  Pope,)  that  "  his  death  was  occasioned  by  a  mere 
accident  whilst  his  great  friend,  Dean  Sprat,  was  with 
him  on  a  visit  at  Chertsey.  They  had  been  together 
to  see  a  neighbour  of  Cowley's,  who,  (according  to  the 


THOMAS  DAY.  109 

fashion  of  those  times,)  made  them  too  welcome.  They 
did  not  set  out  for  their  walk  home  till  it  was  too  late  ; 
and  had  drank  so  deep  that  they  lay  out  in  the  fields 
all  night.  This  gave  Cowley  the  fever  that  carried 
him  off.     The  parish  still  talk  of  the  drunken  Dean." 


A  PRETTY  COMPLIMENT. 
Although  Dr.  Johnson  had  (or  professed  to  have)  a 
profound  and  unjustified  contempt  for  actors,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  comporting  himself  towards  Mrs.  Siddons 
with  great  politeness ;  and  once,  when  she  called  to  see 
him  at  Bolt  Court,  and  his  servant  Frank  could  not 
immediately  furnish  her  with  a  chair,  the  doctor 
said,  "  You  see,  madam,  that  wherever  you  go  there 
are  no  seats  to  be  got." 


THOMAS    DAY,    AND    HIS    MODEL   WIFE. 

Day,  the  author  of  Sandford  and  Merton,  was  an 
eccentric  but  amiable  man ;  he  retired  into  the  country 
"  to  exclude  himself,"  as  he  said,  "  from  the  vanity, 
vice,  and  deceptive  character  of  man,"  but  he  appears  to 
have  been  strangely  jilted  by  women.  When  about  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  and  after  his  suit  had  been  rejected  by 
a  young  lady  to  whom  he  had  paid  his  addresses,  Mr. 
Day  formed  the  singular  project  of  educating  a  wife 
for  himself.  This  was  based  upon  the  notion  of  Rous- 
seau, that  "  all  the  genuine  worth  of  the  human  species 
is  perverted  by  society ;  and  that  children  should  be 
educated  apart  from  the  world,  in  order  that  their 


110  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

minds  should  be  kept  untainted  with,  and  ignorant  of, 
its  vices,  prejudices,  and  artificial  manners." 

Day  set  about  his  project  by  selecting  two  girls  from 
an  establishment  at  Shrewsbury,  connected  with  the 
Foundling  Hospital ;  previously  to  which  he  entered 
into  a  written  engagement,  guaranteed  by  a  friend, 
Mr,  Bicknell,  that  within  twelve  months  he  would 
resign  one  of  them  to  a  respectable  mistress,  as  an 
apprentice,  wdth  a  fee  of  one  hundred  pounds ;  and,  on 
her  marriage,  or  commencing  business  for  herself,  he 
would  give  her  the  additional  snm  of  four  hundred 
pounds;  and  he  further  engaged  that  he  would  act 
honourably  to  the  one  he  should  retain,  in  order  to 
marry  her  at  a  proper  a-j^e ;  or,  if  he  should  change 
his  mind,  he  would  allow  her  a  competent  support 
until  she  married,  and  then  give  her  five  hundred 
pounds  as  a  dowry. 

The  objects  of  Day's  speculation  were  both  twelve 
years  of  age.  One  of  them,  whom  he  called  Lucretia, 
had  a  fair  complexion,  with  light  hair  and  eyes  ;  the 
other  was  a  brunette,  with  chesnut  tresses,  who  was 
styled  Sabrina.  He  took  these  girls  to  France  with- 
out any  English  servants,  in  order  that  they  should 
not  obtain  any  knowledge  but  what  he  should  impart. 
As  might  have  been  anticipated,  they  caused  him 
abundance  of  inconvenience  and  vexation,  increased, 
in  no  small  degree,  by  their  becoming  infected  with  the 
Bmall-pox ;  from  this,  however,  they  recovered  without 
any  injury  to  their  features.  The  scheme  ended 
in  the  utter  disappointment  of  the  projector.  Lu- 
cretia, whom  he  first  dismissed,  was  apprenticed  to  a 


W.  IRVING  AND  WILKIE.  Ill 

milliner ;  and  she  afterwards  became  the  wife  of  a 
linendraper  in  London.  Sabrina,  after  Day  had  re- 
linquished his  attempts  to  make  her  such  a  model  of 
perfection  as  he  required,  and  which  included  indo- 
mitable courage,  as  well  as  the  difficult  art  of  retain- 
ing secrets,  was  placed  at  a  boarding-school  at  Sutton 
Coldfield,  in  Warwickshire,  where  she  was  much 
esteemed ;  and,  strange  to  say,  was  at  length  married 
to  Mr.  Bicknell. 

After  Day  had  renounced  this  scheme  as  impracti- 
cable, he  became  suitor  to  two  sisters  in  succession  ; 
yet,  in  both  instances,  he  was  refused.  At  length,  he 
was  married  at  Bath,  to  a  lady  who  made  "  a  large 
fortune  the  means  of  exercising  the  most  extensive 
generosity." 


WASHINGTON  IRVING  AND  WILKIE,  IN  THE 
ALHAMBRA. 
GEorrEET  Crayon  (Irving),  and  Wilkie,  the  painter, 
were  fellow-travellers  on  the  Continent,  about  the 
year  1827.  In  their  rambles  about  some  of  the  old 
cities  of  Spain,  they  were  more  than  once  struck  with 
scenes  and  incidents  which  reminded  them  of  passages 
in  the  Arabian  Nights.  The  painter  urged  Mr.  Irving 
to  write  something  that  should  illustrate  those  pecu- 
liarities, "  something  in  the  "  Haroun-al-Raschid 
style,"  which  should  have  a  deal  of  that  Arabian  spice 
which  pervades  everything  in  Spain.  The  author  set 
to  work,  con  amore,  and  produced  two  goodly  volumes 
of  Arabesque  sketches  and  tales,  founded  on  popular 


112  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

traditions.  His  study  was  the  Alhambra,  and  the 
governor  of  the  palace  gave  Irving  and  Wilkie  per- 
mission to  occupy  his  vacant  apartments  there. 
Wilkie  was  soon  called  away  by  the  duties  of  his 
station ;  but  Washington  Irving  remained  for  several 
months,  spell-bound  in  the  old  enchanted  pile.  "  How 
many  legends,"  saith  he,  "  and  traditions,  true  and 
fabulous — how  many  songs  and  romances,  Spanish  and 
Arabian,  of  love,  and  war,  and  chivalry,  are  associated 
with  this  romantic  pile." 


BOLINGBROKE    AT   BATTERSEA. 

When  the  late  Sir  Richard  Phillips  took  his  "  Morn- 
ing's Walk  from  London  to  Kew,"  in  1816,  he  found 
that  a  portion  of  the  family  mansion  in  which  Lord 
Bolingbroke  was  bom  had  been  converted  into  a  mill 
and  distillery,  though  a  small  oak  parlour  had  been 
carefully  preserved.  In  this  room.  Pope  is  said  to 
have  written  his  Essay  on  Man ;  and,  in  Bolingbroke's 
time,  the  mansion  was  the  resort,  the  hope,  and  the 
seat  of  enjoyment,  of  Swift,  Arbuthnot,  Thomson, 
Mallet,  and  all  the  contemporary  genius  of  England. 
The  oak  room  was  always  called  "  Pope's  Parlour," 
it  being,  in  all  probability,  the  apartment  generally 
occupied  by  that  great  poet,  in  his  visits  to  his  friend 
Bolingbroke. 

On  inquiring  for  an  ancient  inhabitant  of  Battersea, 
Sir  Richard  Phillips  was  introduced  to  a  Mrs.  Gilliard, 
a  pleasant  and  intelligent  woman,  who  told  him  she 
well  remembered  Lord  Bolingbroke  i  that  he  used  to 


RELICS  OF  MILTON.  113 

ride  out  every  day  in  his  chariot,  and  had  a  black 
patch  on  his  cheek,  with  a  large  wart  over  his  eye- 
brows. She  was  then  but  a  girl,  but  she  was  taught 
to  look  upon  him  with  veneration  as  a  great  man.  As, 
however,  he  spent  little  in  the  place,  and  gave  little 
away,  he  was  not  much  regarded  by  the  people  of 
Battersea.  Sir  Richard  mentioned  to  her  the  names 
of  several  of  Bolingbroke's  contemporaries ;  but  she 
recollected  none  except  that  of  Mallet,  who,  she  said, 
she  had  often  seen  walking  about  in  the  village,  while 
he  was  visiting  at  Bolingbroke  House. 


RELICS  OF  MILTON. 
Milton  was  born  at  the  Spread  Eagle,*  Bread-street, 
Cheapside,  December  9,  1608  ;  and  was  buried,  No- 
vember, 1674,  in  St.  Giles's  Church,  Cripplegate, 
without  even  a  stone,  in  the  first  instance,  to  mark  his 
resting-place;  but,  in  1793,  a  bust  and  tablet  were 
set  up  to  his  memory  by  public  subscription. 

Milton,  before  he  resided  in  Jewin-gardens,  Alders- 
gate,  is  believed  to  have  removed  to,  and  "  kept 
school "  in  a  large  house  on  the  west  side  of  Alders- 
gate-street,  wherein  met  the  City  of  London  Literary 
and  Scientific  Institution,  previously  to  the  rebuilding 
of  their  premises  in  1 839. 

Milton's  London  residences  have  all,  with  one  ex- 
ception, disappeared,  and  cannot  be  recognised ;  this 
is  in  Petty  France,  at  Westminster,  where  the  poet 
lived  from   1651  to  1659.     The  lower  part  of  the 

•  The  house  has  been  destroyed  many  years. 
H 


114  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

house  is  a  chandler's-shop ;  the  parlour,  up  stairs, 
looks  into  St.  James's-park.  Here  part  of  Paradise 
Lost  was  written.  The  house  belonged  to  Jeremy 
Bentham,  who  caused  to  be  placed  on  its  front  a  tablet, 
inscribed,  "  Sacked  to  Mllton,  Pkince  of  Poets." 

In  the  same  glass-case  with  Shakspeare's  auto- 
graph, in  the  British  Museum,  is  a  printed  copy  of 
the  Elegies  on  Mr.  Edward  King,  the  subject  of  Ly- 
cidas,  with  some  corrections  of  the  text  in  Milton's 
handwriting.  Framed  and  glazed,  in  the  library  of 
Mr.  Rogers,  the  poet,  hangs  the  written  agreement 
between  Milton  and  his  publisher,  Simmons,  for  the 
copyright  of  his  Paradise  Lost. — Note-book  0/1848. 


WRITING    UP  THE    "  TIMES   '    NEWSPAPER. 

Db.  Dibdin,  in  his  Reminiscences,  relates : — "  Sir 
John  Stoddart  married  the  sister  of  Lord  Moncriefif, 
by  whom  he  has  a  goodly  race  of  representatives ;  but, 
before  his  marriage,  he  was  the  man  who  wrote  up  the 
Times  newspaper  to  its  admitted  pitch  of  distinction 
and  superiority  over  every  other  contemporary  journal. 
Mark,  gentle  reader,  I  speak  of  the  Times  newspaper 
during  the  eventful  and  appalling  crisis  of  Bonaparte's 
invasion  of  Spain  and  destruction  of  Moscow.  My 
friend  fought  with  his  pen  as  Wellington  fought  with 
his  sword :  but  nothing  like  a  tithe  of  the  remuneration 
which  was  justly  meted  out  to  the  hero  of  AVaterloo 
befel  the  editor  of  the  Times.  Of  course,  I  speak  of 
remuneration  in  degree,  and  not  in  kind.  The  peace 
followed     Public  curiosity  lulled,  and  all  great  and 


THE  BOARS  HEAD  TAVERN.        116 

Btirring  events  having  subsided,  it  was  thought  that  a 
writer  of  less  commanding  talent,  (certainly  not  the 
present  Editoi;)  and  therefore  procurable  at  a  less  pre- 
mium, would  answer  the  current  purposes  of  the  day ; 
and  the  retirement  of  Dr.  Stoddart,  (for  he  was  at  this 
time  a  civilian,  and  particularly  noticed  and  patro- 
nised by  Lord  Stowell,)  from  the  old  Times,  and  his 
establishment  of  the  New  Times  newspaper,  followed 
in  consequence.  But  the  latter,  from  various  causes, 
had  only  a  short-lived  existence.  Sir  John  Stoddart 
had  been  his  Majesty's  advocate,  or  Attorney- General, 
at  Malta,  before  he  retired  thither  a  second  time, 
to  assume  the  office  of  Judge." 


EELICS    OF   THE    BOARS    HEAD    TAVEEN, 
EASTCHEAP. 

Thb  portal  of  the  Boar's  Head  was  originally  deco- 
rated with  carved  oak  figures  of  Falstaff  and  Prince 
Henry ;  and  in  1834,  the  former  figure  was  in  the 
possession  of  a  brazier,  of  Great  Eastcheap,  whose 
ancestors  had  lived  in  the  shop  he  then  occupied  since 
the  great  fire.  The  last  grand  Shakspearean  dinner- 
party took  place  at  the  Boar's  Head  about  1784.  A 
boar's  head,  with  silver  tusks,  which  had  been  sus- 
pended in  some  room  in  the  house,  perhaps  the  Hali 
Moon  or  Pomegranate,  (see  Henri/  IV.,  Act.  ii., 
scene  3,)  at  the  great  fire,  fell  down  with  the  ruins 
of  the  houses,  little  injured,  and  was  conveyed  to 
Whitechapel  Mount,  where  it  was  identified  and 
recovered  about  thirty  years  ago. 


116  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

ORIGIN   OF   "THE    EDINBURGH   REVIEW." 

The  Edinburgh  Review  was  first  published  in  1802. 
The  plan  was  suggested  by  Sydney  Smith,  at  a  meeting 
of  literati,  in  the  fourth  or  lifth  flat  or  story,  in  Buc- 
cleugh -place,  Edinburgh,  then  the  elevated  lodging 
of  Jeffrey.  The  motto  humorously  proposed  for  the 
new  review  by  its  projector  was,  "  Tenui  musam  medi- 
tamur  avena^^ — i.  e.,  "  We  cultivate  literature  upon 
a  little  oatmeal ;"  but  this  being  too  nearly  the  truth 
to  be  publicly  acknowledged,  the  more  grave  dictum 
of  "  Judex  damnatur  cum  nocens  absolvitur"  was 
adopted  from  Publius  St/rus,  of  whom,  Sydney  Smith 
aflBrms,  "  None  of  us,  I  am  sure,  ever  read  a  single 
line  !"  Lord  Byron,  in  his  fifth  edition  of  English 
Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers,  refers  to  the  reviewers 
as  an  "  oat-fed  phalanx." 


CLEVER   STATESMEN. 

However  great  talents  may  command  the  admiration 
of  the  world,  they  do  not  generally  best  fit  a  man  for 
the  discharge  of  social  duties.  Swift  remarks  that 
"  Men  of  great  parts  are  often  unfortunate  in  the  ma- 
nagement of  public  business,  because  they  are  apt  to 
go  out  of  the  common  road  by  the  quickness  of  their 
imagination.  This  I  once  said  to  my  Lord  Boling- 
broke,  and  desired  he  would  observe,  that  the  clerk  in 
his  office  used  a  sort  of  ivory  knife,  with  a  blunt  edge, 
to  divide  a  sheet  of  paper,  which  never  failed  to  cut  it 


MRS.  TRIMMER.  117 

even,  only  by  requiring  a  steady  hand ;  whereas,  if  he 
should  make  one  of  a  sharp  penknife,  the  sharpness 
would  make  it  go  often  out  of  the  crease,  and  disfigure 
the  paper." 

THE  FIRST  MAGAZINE. 
The  GentlemarC s  Magazine  unaccountably  passes  for 
the  earliest  periodical  of  that  description  ;  while,  in 
fact,  it  was  preceded  nearly  forty  years  by  the  Gentle- 
mans  Journal  of  Motteux,  a  work  much  more  closely 
resembling  our  modern  magazines,  and  from  which 
Sylvanus  Urban  borrowed  part  of  his  title,  and  part 
of  his  motto ;  while  on  the  first  page  of  the  first 
number  of  the  GentlemarC s  Magazine  itself,  it  is  stated 
to  contain  "  more  than  any  book  of  the  kind  and 
price." 


MRS.  TRIMMER. 
This  ingenious  woman  was  the  daughter  of  Joshua 
and  Sarah  Kirby,  and  was  born  at  Ipswich,  January 
6,  1741.  Kirby  taught  George  the  Third,  when 
Prince  of  Wales,  perspective  and  architecture.  He  was 
also  President  of  the  Society  of  Artists  of  Great  Bri- 
tain, out  of  which  grew  the  Royal  Academy.  It  was 
the  last  desire  of  Gainsborough  to  be  buried  beside  his 
old  friend  Kirby,  and  their  tombs  adjoin  each  other  in 
the  churchyard  at  Kew. 

Mrs.  Trimmer,  when  a  girl,  was  constantly  reading 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost ;  and  this  circumstance  so 
pleased  Dr.  Johnson,  that  he  invited  her  to  see  him, 


118  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

and  presented  her  with  a  copy  of  his  Rambler.  She 
also  repeatedly  met  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Dr.  Gregory, 
Sharp,  Hogarth,  and  Gainsborough,  with  all  of  whom 
her  father  was  on  terms  of  intimacy.  Mrs.  Trimmer 
advocated  religious  education  against  the  latitudinarian 
views  of  Joseph  Lancaster.  It  was  at  her  persuasion 
that  Dr.  Bell  entered  the  field,  and  paved  the  way  for 
the  establishment  of  the  N^ational  Society.  Mrs. 
Trimmer  died,  in  her  seventieth  year,  in  1810.  She 
was  seated  at  her  table  reading  a  letter,  when  her 
head  sunk  upon  her  bosom,  and  she  "  fell  asleep ;"  and 
so  gentle  was  the  wafting,  that  she  seemed  for  some 
time  in  a  refreshing  slumber,  which  her  family  were 
unwilling  to  interrupt. 


BOSWELLS  BEAR-LEADING. 
It  was  on  a  visit  to  the  parliament  house  that  Mr. 
Henry  Erskine,  (brother  of  Lord  Buchan  and  Lord 
Erskine,)  after  being  presented  to  Dr.  Johnson  by 
Mr.  Boswell,  and  having  made  his  bow,  slipped  a 
shilling  into  Boswell's  hand,  whispering  that  it  was 
for  the  sight  of  his  bear. — Sir  Walter  Scott. 


LORD  ELIBANK  AND  DR.  JOHNSON 
LoED  Eltbank  made  a  happy  retort  on  Dr.  Johnson's 
definition  of  oats,  as  the  food  of  horses  in  England, 
and  men  in  Scotland.  "  Yes,"  said  he,  "  and  where 
else  will  you  see  such  horses,  and  stich  tnenf" — Si'^ 
Waller  Scott. 


RELICS  OF  DR.  JOHNSON.  119 

RELICS  OF  DR.  JOHNSON  AT  LICHFIELD. 
The  house  in  which  Dr.  Johnson  was  born,  at  Lich- 
field— where  his  father,  it  is  well  known,  kept  a  small 
bookseller's  shop,  and  where  he  was  partly  educated 
— stood  on  the  west  side  of  the  market-place.  In  the 
centre  of  the  market-place  is  a  colossal  statue  of  John- 
son, seated  upon  a  square  pedestal :  it  is  by  Lucas, 
and  was  executed  at  the  expense  of  the  Rev.  Chancellor 
Law,  in  1838.  By  the  side  of  a  footpath  leading  from 
Dam-street  to  Stow,  formerly  stood  a  large  willow, 
said  to  have  been  planted  by  Johnson.  It  was  blown 
down,  in  1829 ;  but  one  of  its  shoots  was  pre- 
served and  planted  upon  the  same  spot :  it  was  in  the 
year  1848  a  large  tree,  known  in  the  town  as  "  John- 
son's Willow." 

Mr.  Lomax,  who  for  many  years  kept  a  book- 
seller's shop — "  The  Johnson's  Head,"  in  Bird-street, 
Lichfield,  possessed  several  articles  that  formerly 
belonged  to  Johnson,  which  have  been  handed  down 
by  a  clear  and  indisputable  ownership.  Amongst 
them  is  bis  own  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  in  which 
are  written,  in  pencil,  the  four  Latin  lines  printed  in 
Strahan's  edition  of  the  Doctor's  Prayers.  There  are, 
also,  a  sacrament-book,  with  Johnson's  wife's  name 
in  it,  in  his  own  handwriting ;  an  autograph  letter 
of  the  Doctor's  to  Miss  Porter ;  two  tea-spoons,  an 
ivory  tablet,  and  a  breakfast  table;  aVisscher's  Atlas, 
paged  by  the  Doctor,  and  a  manuscript  index ;  Davies's 
Life  of  Garrich,  presented  to  Johnson  by  the  pub- 
lisher ;  a  walking  cane  ;  and  a  Dictionary  of  Heathen 


120  BOOKS  AND  A  UTHORS. 

Mythology,  with  the  Doctor's  ]VIS.  co):rections.  His 
wife's  wedding-ring,  afterwards  made  into  a  mourning- 
ring  ;  and  a  massive  chair,  in  which  he  customarily 
sat,  were  also  in  Mr  Lomax's  possession. 

Among  the  few  persons  living  in  the  year  1848  who 
ever  saw  Dr.  Johnson,  was  Mr.  Dyott,  of  Lichfield  : 
this  was  seventy-four  years  before,  or  in  1774,  when  the 
Doctor  and  Boswell,  on  their  tour  into  Wales,  stopped 
at  Ashbourne,  and  there  visited  IMr.  Dyott's  father, 
who  was  then  residing  at  Ashbourne  Hall.* 


COLERIDGE  A  SOLDIER. 
Aftee  Coleridge  left  Cambridge,  he  came  to  London, 
where  soon  feeling  himself  forlorn  and  destitute,  he 
enlisted  as  a  soldier  in  the  15th  Elliot's  Light  Dragoons. 
•'  On  his  arrival  at  the  quarters  of  the  regiment,"  says 
his  friend  and  biographer,  Mr.  Oilman,  "  the  general 
of  the  district  inspected  the  recruits,  and  looking  hard 
at  Coleridge,  With  a  military  air,  inquired  'What's 
your  name,  sir  ?'  '  Comberbach !'  (the  name  he  had 
assumed.)  '  What  do  you  come  here  for,  sir  ?'  as  if 
doubting  whether  he  had  any  business  there.  '  Sir,' 
said  Coleridge,  '  for  what  most  other  persons  come — 
to  be  made  a  soldier.'  '  Do  you  think,'  said  the 
general,  'you  can  run  a  Frenchman  through  the 
body  ?'  '  I  do  not  know,'  replied  Coleridge,  '  as  I 
never  tried ;  but  I'll  let  a  Frenchman  run  me  through 

•  "The  Dyotts," notes  Croker,  "are  a  respectable  and  wealthy 
family,  still  residing  near  Lichfield.  The  royalist  who  shot 
Lord  Brooke  when  assaulting  St.  Chad'o  Cathedral,  in  Lichfield, 
on  St.  Chad's  Day,  was  a  Mr.  Dyott." 


COBBETTS  BOYHOOD.  121 

the  body  before  I'll  run  away.'     '  That  will  do,'  said 
the  general,  and  Coleridge  was  turned  in  the  ranks." 

The  poet  made  a  poor  dragoon,  and  never  advanced 
beyond  the  awkward  squad.  He  wrote  letters,  how- 
ever, for  all  his  comrades,  and  they  attended  to  hb 
horse  and  accoutrements.  After  four  months  service, 
(December  1793  to  April  1794),  the  history  and  cir- 
cumstances of  Coleridge  became  known.  He  had 
written  under  his  saddle,  on  the  stable  wall,  a  Latin 
sentence  (Eheu  !  quara  infortunii  miserrimum  est 
fuisse  felicem  !)  which  led  to  an  inquiry  on  the  part  of 
the  captain  of  his  troop,  who  had  more  regard  for 
the  classics  than  Ensign  Northerton,  in  Tom  Jones. 
Coleridge  was,  accordingly,  discharged,  and  restored  to 
his  family  and  friends. 


COBBETTS  BOYHOOD. 
Perhaps,  in  Cobbett's  voluminous  writings,  there  is 
nothing  so  complete  as  the  following  picture  of  his 
boyish  scenes  and  recollections :  it  has  been  well  com- 
pared to  the  most  simple  and  touching  passages  in 
Richardson's  Pamela : — 

"  After  living  within  a  hundred  yards  of  Westminster  Hall 
and  the  Abbey  church,  and  the  bridge,  and  looking  from  my 
own  window  into  St.  James's  Park,  all  other  buildings  and 
spots  appear  mean  and  insignificant.  I  went  to-day  to  see  the 
house  I  formerly  occupied.  How  small  I  It  is  always  thus : 
the  words  large  and  small  are  carried  about  with  us  in  our 
minds,  and  we  forget  real  dimensions.  The  idea,  such  as  it  was 
received,  remains  during  our  absence  from  the  object.  When  I 
returned  to  England  in  1800,  after  an  absence  from  the  country 
parts  of  it  of  sixteen  years,  the  trees,  the  hedges,  even  the  parks 
and  woods,  seemed  so  small !  It  made  me  laugh  to  hear  little 
gutters,  that  I  could  jump  over,  called  rivers!    The  Thames  wai 


122  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

but '  a  creek !'  But  when,  in  about  a  month  after  my  arrival 
in  London:i,  I  went  to  Farnham,  the  place  of  my  birtli,  wliat  was 
my  surprise !  Every  thing  was  become  so  pitifully  small !  I 
liad  to  cross  in  my  postchaise  tlie  long  and  dreary  heatli  of 
B.igshot.  Then,  at  the  end  of  it,  to  mount  a  hill  called  Hungry 
Hill ;  and  from  that  hill  I  knew  that  I  should  look  down  into 
tlie  beautiful  and  fertile  vale  of  Farnham.  My  heart  fluttered 
with  impatience,  mixed  with  a  sort  of  fear,  to  sec  all  the  scenes 
of  my  cliildhood ;  for  I  had  learned  before  the  death  of  my 
father  and  mother.  There  is  a  hill  not  far  from  the  town, 
called  Crooksbury  Hill,  wliich  rises  up  out  of  a  flat  in  the  form 
')f  a  cone,  and  is  planted  with  Scotch  fir-trees.  Here  I  used  to 
take  the  eggs  and  young  ones  of  crows  and  magpies.  This  hill 
was  a  famous  object  in  the  neighbourhood.  It  served  as  the 
superlative  degree  of  height.  'As  high  as  Crooksbury  Hill,' 
meant  with  us,  the  utmost  degree  of  height.  Therefore,  the  first 
object  my  eyes  sought  was  this  hill.  I  could  not  believe  my 
eyes  !  Literally  .'^peaking,  I  for  a  moment  thought  the  famous 
hill  removed,  and  a  little  heap  put  in  its  stead ;  for  I  had  seen 
in  New  Brunswick  a  single  rock,  or  hill  of  solid  rock,  ten  times 
as  big,  and  four  or  five  times  as  high !  The  post-boy,  going 
down  hill,  and  not  a  bad  road,  whisked  me  in  a  few  minutes  to 
the  Bush  Inn,  from  the  garden  of  which  I  could  see  the  pro- 
digious sand  hill  where  I  had  begun  my  gardening  works. 
What  a  nothing  !  But  now  came  rushing  into  my  mind  all  at 
once  my  pretty  little  garden,  my  little  blue  smock-frock,  my 
little  nailed  shoes,  my  pretty  pigeons  that  I  used  to  feed  out  of 
my  hands,  the  last  kind  words  and  tears  of  my  gentle  and 
tender-hearted  and  affectionate  mother.  I  hastened  back  into 
the  room.  If  I  had  looked  a  moment  longer,  I  should  have 
dropped.  Wlien  I  came  to  reflect,  what  a  cliange !  What 
scenes  I  had  gone  through !  How  altered  my  state !  I  had 
dined  the  day  before  at  a  secretary  of  state's,  in  company  with 
Mr.  Pitt,  and  had  been  waited  upon  by  men  in  gaudy  liveries ! 
I  had  had  nobody  to  assist  me  in  the  world.  No  teachers  of  any 
sort.  Nobody  to  shelter  me  from  the  consequence  of  bad,  and 
nobody  to  counsel  me  to  good  behaviour.  I  felt  proud.  The  dis- 
tinctions of  rank,  birth,  and  wealth,  all  became  nothing  in  my 
eyes ;  and  from  tliat  moment  (less  than  a  month  after  my 
arrival  in  England),  I  resolved  never  to  bend  before  them." 

Cobbett  was,  for  a  short  time,  a  labourer  in  the 
kitchen  grounds  of  the  Royal  Gardens  at  Kew.     King 


COLERIDGE.  123 

George  the  Third  often  visited  the  gardens  to  inquire 
after  the  fruits  and  esculents  ;  and  one  day,  he  saw 
here  Cobbett,  then  a  lad,  who  with  a  few  halfpence  in 
his  pocket,  and  Swift's  Tale  of  a  Tuh  in  his  hand,  had 
been  so  captivated  by  the  wonders  of  the  royal  gardens, 
that  he  applied  there  for  employment.  The  Idng,  on 
perceiving  the  clownish  hoy,  with  his  stockings  tied 
about  his  legs  by  scarlet  garters,  inquired  about  him, 
and  specially  desired  that  he  might  be  continued  in 
his  service. 

COLERIDGE  AN    UNITARIAN    PREACHER. 

During  his  residence  at  Nether  Stoney,  Coleridge 
officiated  as  Unitarian  preacher  at  Taunton,  and  after- 
wards at  Shrewsbury,  Mr.  Hazlitt  has  described  his 
walking  ten  miles  on  a  winter  day  to  hear  Coleridge 
preach.  "  When  I  got  there,"  he  says,  "  the  organ 
was  playing  the  100th  psalm,  and,  when  it  was  done, 
Mr.  Coleridge  rose  and  gave  out  his  text: — 'He 
departed  again  into  a  mountain  himself  alone.'  As 
he  gave  out  his  text,  his  voice  rose  like  a  stream  ot 
rich  distilled  perfume ;  when  he  came  to  the  two 
last  words,  which  he  pronounced  loud,  deep,  and 
distinct,  it  seemed  to  me,  who  was  then  young, 
as  if  the  sounds  had  echoed  from  the  bottom  of 
the  human  heart,  and  as  if  that  prayer  might  have 
floated  in  solemn  silence  through  the  universe.  The 
idea  of  St.  John  came  into  my  mind,  of  one  cry- 
ing in  the  wilderness,  who  had  his  loins  girt  about, 
and  whose  food  was  locusts  and  wild  honey.  The 
preacher  then  launched  into  his  subject,  like  an  eagle 


124  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

dallying  with  the  wind.  The  sermon  was  upon  peace 
and  war — upon  Church  and  State ;  not  their  alliance, 
but  their  separation ;  on  the  spirit  of  the  world  and 
the  spirit  of  Christianity ;  not  as  the  same,  but  as 
opposed  to  one  another.  He  talked  of  those  who  had 
inscribed  the  cross  of  Christ  on  banners  dripping  with 
human  gore  !  He  made  a  poetical  and  pastoral  excur- 
sion ;  and,  to  show  the  fatal  effects  of  war,  drew  a 
striking  contrast  between  the  simple  shepherd-boy 
driving  his  team  a- field,  or  sitting  under  the  hawthorn, 
piping  to  his  flock,  as  though  he  should  never  be  old, 
and  the  same  poor  country-lad  crimped,  kidnapped, 
brought  into  town,  made  drunk  at  an  alehouse,  turned 
into  a  wretched  drummer-boy,  with  his  hair  sticking 
on  end  with  powder  and  pomatum,  a  long  cue  at  his 
back,  and  tricked  out  in  the  finery  of  the  profession 
of  blood. 

"  '  Such  were  the  notes  our  once-loved  poet  sung ;' 
and,  for  myself,  I  could  not  have  been  more  delighted 
if  I  had  heard  the  music  of  the  spheres." 


FONTENELLE  S  INSENSIBILITY. 
FoNTENELLE,  who  lived  till  within  one  month  of  a 
century,  was  very  rarely  known  to  laugh  or  cry,  and 
even  boasted  of  his  insensibility.  One  day,  a  certain  hon- 
vivant  Abbe  came  unexpectedly  to  dine  with  him.  The 
Abbe  was  fond  of  asparagus  dressed  with  butter ;  Fon- 
tenelle,  also,  had  a  great  gout  for  the  vegetable,  but 
preferred  it  dressed  with  oil.  Fontenelle  said,  that, 
for  such  a  friend,  there  was  no  sacrifice  he  would  net 


TOILS  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  125 

make;  and  that  he  should  have  half  the  dish  of 
asparagus  which  he  had  ordered  for  himself,  and  that 
half,  moreover,  should  be  dressed  with  butter.  While 
they  were  conversing  together,  the  poor  Abbe  fell 
down  in  a  fit  of  apoplexy ;  upon  which  Fontenelle 
instantly  scampered  down  stairs,  and  eagerly  bawled 
out  to  his  cook,  "  The  whole  with  oil !  the  whole  with 
oil,  as  at  first !" 


PAINS  AND  TOILS  OF  AUTHORSHIP. 
The  craft  of  authorship  is  by  no  means  so  easy  of 
practice  as  is  generally  imagined  by  the  thousands  who 
aspire  to  its  practice.  Almost  all  our  works,  whether 
of  knowledge  or  of  fancy,  have  been  the  product  of 
much  intellectual  exertion  and  study ;  or,  as  it  is  better 
expressed  by  the  poet — 

"  the  well-ripened  fruits  of  wise  decay." 
Pope  published  nothing  until  it  had  been  a  year  or  two 
before  him,  and  even  then  his  printer's  proofs  were 
very  full  of  alterations ;  and,  on  one  occasion,  Dods- 
ley,  his  publisher,  thought  it  better  to  have  the  whole 
recomposed  than  make  the  necessary  corrections. 
Goldsmith  considered  four  lines  a  day  good  work, 
and  was  seven  j-ears  in  beating  out  the  pure  gold  of 
the  Deserted  Village.  Hume  wrote  his  History  of 
England  on  a  sofa,  but  he  went  quietly  on  correct- 
ing every  edition  till  his  death.  Robertson  used  to 
write  out  his  sentences  on  small  slips  of  paper ;  and, 
after  rounding  them  and  polishing  them  to  his 
eatisfaction,  he  entered  them  in  a  book,  which,  in  its 


126  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

turn,  underwent  considerable  revision.  Burke  had  all 
his  principal  works  printed  two  or  three  times  at  a 
private  press  before  submitting  them  to  his  publisher. 
Akenside  and  Gray  were  indefatigable  correctors, 
labouring  every  line ;  and  so  was  our  prolix  and  more 
imaginative  poet,  Thomson.  On  comparing  the  first 
and  latest  editions  of  the  Seasons,  there  will  be  found 
scarcely  a  page  which  does  not  bear  evidence  of  his 
taste  and  industry.  Johnson  thinks  the  poems  lost 
much  of  their  raciness  under  this  severe  regimen,  but 
they  were  much  improved  in  fancy  and  delicacy ;  the 
episode  of  Musidora,  "  the  solemnly  ridiculous  bathing 
scene,"  as  Campbell  terms  it,  was  almost  entirely  re- 
written. Johnson  and  Gibbon  were  the  least  laborious 
in  arranging  their  copy  for  the  press.  Gibbon  sent 
the  first  and  only  MS.  of  his  stupendous  work  (the 
Decline  and  Fall)  to  his  printer  ;  and  Johnson's  high- 
sounding  sentences  were  written  almost  without  an 
eifort.  Both,  however,  lived  and  moved,  as  it  were, 
in  the  world  of  letters,  thinking  or  caring  of  little 
else — one  in  the  heart  of  busy  London,  which  he 
dearly  loved,  and  the  other  in  his  silent  retreat  at 
Lausanne.  Dryden  wrote  hurriedly,  to  provide  for 
the  day ;  but  his  Absalom  and  AcMtophel,  and  the  beau- 
tiful imagery  of  the  Hind  and  Panther,  must  have  been 
fostered  with  parental  care.  St.  Pierre  copied  his 
Paul  and  Virginia  nine  times,  that  he  might  render  it 
the  more  perfect.  Rousseau  was  a  very  coxcomb  in 
these  matters  :  the  amatory  epistles,  in  his  new  Heloise, 
he  wrote  on  fine  gilt-edged  card-paper,  and  having 
folded,  addressed,  and  sealed  them,  he  opened  and  read 


TOILS  OF  AUTHORSHIP.  127 

them  in  the  solitary  woods  of  Clairens,  with  the 
mingled  enthusiasm  of  an  author  and  lover.  Sheridan 
watched  long  and  anxiously  for  bright  thoughts,  as 
the  MS.  of  his  School  for  Scandal,  in  its  various 
stages,  proves.  Burns  composed  in  the  open  air,  the 
sunnier  the  better ;  but  he  laboured  hard,  and  with 
almost  unerring  taste  and  judgment,  in  correcting.* 

Lord  Byron  was  a  rapid  composer,  but  made  abun- 
dant use  of  the  pruning-knife.  On  returning  one  of 
his  proof  sheets  from  Italy,  he  expressed  himself  un- 
decided about  a  single  word,  for  which  he  wished  to 
substitute  another,  and  requested  Mr.  Murray  to  refer 
it  to  Mr.  Gifford,  then  editor  of  the  Quarterly  Review. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  evinced  his  love  of  literary  labour 
by  undertaking  the  revision  of  the  whole  of  the 
Waverley  Novels — a  goodly  freightage  of  some  fifty 
or  sixty  volumes.  The  works  of  Wordsworth,  Southey, 
Coleridge,  and  Moore,  and  the  occasional  variations 
in   their   different   editions,   mark   their  love   of  the 


*  "  I  have  seen,"  says  a  Correspondent  of  the  Inverness  Courier, 
"  a  copy  of  the  second  edition  of  Burns's  '  Poems,'  with  the  blanks 
filled  up,  and  numerous  alterations  made  in  the  poet's  hand- 
writing :  one  instance,  not  the  most  delicate,  but  perhaps  the 
most  amusing  and  characteristic  will  suffice.  After  describing 
the  gambols  of  his  '  Twa  Dogs.'  their  historian  refers  to  their 
Bitting  down  in  coarse  and  rustic  terms.  This,  of  course,  did 
not  suit  the  poet's  Edinburgh  patrons,  and  he  altered  it  to  the 
following : — 

'  Till  tired  at  last,  and  doucer  grown, 
Upon  a  knowe  they  sat  them  down.' 
Still  this  did  not  please  his  fancy  ;  he  tried  again,  and  hit  it 
off  in  the  simple,  perfect  form  in  which  it  now  stands: — 

•  Until  wi'  daffln  weary  grown, 
Upon  a  knowe  they  sat  them  down.' " 


128  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

touching.  Southey  was,  indeed,  unwearied  after  hb 
kind—  a  true  author  of  the  old  school.  The  bright 
thoughts  of  Campbell,  which  sparkle  like  polished 
lances,  were  manufactured  with  almost  equal  care ;  he 
was  the  Pope  of  our  contemporary  authors.*  Allan 
Cunningham  corrected  but  little,  yet  his  imitations  of 
the  elder  lyrics  are  perfect  centos  of  Scottish  feeling 
and  poesy.  The  loving,  laborious  lingering  of  Tenny- 
son over  his  poems,  and  the  frequent  alterations — 
not  in  every  case  improvements — that  appear  in  suc- 
cessive editions  of  his  works,  are  familiar  to  all  his 
admirers. 

JOE  MILLER  AT  COURT. 
Joe  IMiLLER,  (Mottley,)  was  such  a  favourite  at  court, 
that  Caroline,  queen  of  George  II.,  commanded  a  play 
to  be  performed  for  his  benefit;  the  queen  disposed 
of  a  great  many  tickets  at  one  of  her  drawing-rooms, 
and  most  of  them  were  paid  for  in  gold. 

*  Campbell's  alterations  were,  generally,  decided  improve- 
ments ;  but  in  one  instance  he  failed  lamentably.    The  noble 
I^roration  of  Lochiel  is  familiar  to  most  readers : — 
"  Shall  victor  exult,  or  in  death  be  laid  low, 
"With  his  back  to  the  field  and  his  feet  to  the  foe; 
And  leaving  in  battle  no  blot  on  his  name. 
Look  proudly  to  heaven  from  the  death-bed  of  fame." 
In  the  quarto  edition  of  Gertrude  of  Wyoming,  when  the  poet 
collected  and  reprinted  his  minor  pieces,  this  lofty  sentiment 
was  thus  stultified  : — 

"  Shall  victor  exult  in  the  battle's  acclaim, 
Or  look  to  yon  heaven  from  the  death-bed  of  fame." 
The  original  passage,  however,  was  wisely  restored  in  ttiA 
subsequent  editions. 


COLLINS'  INSANITY.  129 

COLLINS'  INSANITY. 
Much  has  been  said  of  the  state  of  insanity  to  which 
the  author  of  the  Ode  to  the  Passions  was  ultimately 
reduced  ;  or  rather,  as  Dr.  Johnson  happily  describes 
it,  "a depression  of  mind  which  enchains  the  faculties 
without  destroying  them,  and  leaves  reason  the  know- 
ledge of  right,  without  the  power  of  pursuing  it." 
What  Johnson  has  further  said  on  this  melancholy 
subject,  shows  perhaps  more  nature  and  feeling  than 
anything  he  ever  wrote;  and  yet  it  is  remarkable 
that  among  the  causes  to  which  the  poet's  malady 
was  ascribed,  he  never  hints  at  the  most  exciting 
of  the  whole.  He  tells  us  how  Collins  "  loved  fairies, 
genii,  giants,  and  monsters  ;"  how  he  "  delighted  to 
roam  through  the  meanders  of  enchantment,  to  gaze 
on  the  magnificence  of  golden  palaces,  to  repose  by 
the  waterfalls  of  Elysian  gardens."  But  never  does 
he  seem  to  have  imagined  how  natural  it  was  for  a 
mind  of  such  a  temperament  to  give  an  Eve  to  the 
Paradise  of  his  Creation.  Johnson,  in  truth,  though, 
as  he  tells  us,  he  gained  the  confidence  of  Collins,  was 
not  just  the  man  into  whose  ear  a  lover  would  choose 
to  pour  his  secrets.  The  fact  was,  Collins  was  greatly 
attached  to  a  young  lady  who  did  not  return  his 
passion ;  and  there  seems  to  be  little  doubt,  that  to 
the  consequent  disappointment,  preying  on  his  mind, 
was  due  much  of  that  abandonment  of  soul  which 
marked  the  close  of  his  career.  The  object  of  his 
passion  was  born  the  day  before  him ;  and  to  this 
circumstance,  in  one  of  his  brighter  moments,  he 
I 


130  BOOKS  a:nd  authors. 

made  a  most  happy  allusion.  A  friend  remarking  to 
the  luckless  lover,  that  his  was  a  hard  case,  Collins 
replied,  "  It  is  so,  indeed  ;  for  I  came  into  the  world  a 
day  after  the  fair.'''' 


MOORE'S  EPIGEAM  on  ABBOTT, 

Mr.  Speaker  Abbott  having  spoken  in  slighting  terms 
of  some  of  Moore's  poems,  the  poet  wrote,  in  return, 
the  following  biting  epigram  : 

"  They  say  he  has  no  heart ;  but  I  deny  it ; 
He  has  a  heart — and  gets  his  speeches  by  it." 


NEGROES  AT  HOME. 

When  Lord  Byron  was  in  Parliament,  a  petition  set- 
ting forth,  and  calling  for  redress  for,  the  wretched 
state  of  the  Irish  peasantry,  was  one  evening  pre- 
sented to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  very  coldly  re- 
ceived. "Ah ! "  said  Lord  Byron,  "what  a  misfortune 
it  was  for  the  Irish  that  they  were  not  bom  black  ! 
they  would  then  have  had  plenty  of  friends  in  both 
Houses  " — referring  to  the  great  interest  at  the  time 
being  taken  by  some  philanthropic  members  in  the 
condition  and  future  of  the  negroes  in  our  West 
Indian  colonies. 


A  STRING  OF  JERROLD'S  JOKES. 
At  a  club  of  which  Jerrold  was  a  member,  a  fierce 
Jacobite,  and  a  friend,  as  fierce,  of  the  Orange  cause, 
were  arguing  noisily,  and  disturbing  less  excitable 


A  STRING  OF  JERROLD'S  JOKES.     131 

conversationalists.  At  length  the  Jacobite,  a  brawny- 
Scot,  brought  his  fist  down  heavily  upon  the  table, 
and  roared  at  his  adversary,  "  I  teU  you  what  it  is, 
sir,  I  spit  upon  your  King  William  ! "  The  friend  of 
the  Prince  of  Orange  rose,  and  roared  back  to  the 
Jacobite,  "  And  I,  sir,  spit  upon  your  James  the 
Second ! "  Jerrold,  who  had  been  listening  to  the 
uproar  in  silence,  hereupon  rang  the  bell,  and  shouted 
"  "Waiter,  spittoons  for  two !  " 

At  an  evening  party,  Jerrold  was  looking  at  the 
dancers,  when,  seeing  a  very  tall  gentleman  waltzing 
with  a  remarkably  short  lady,  he  said  to  a  friend  at 
hand,  "  Humph !  there's  the  mile  dancing  with  the 
milestone ! " 

An  old  lady  was  in  the  habit  of  talking  to  Jerrold 
in  a  gloomy,  depressing  manner,  presenting  to  him 
only  the  sad  side  of  life.  "  Hang  it,"  said  Jerrold,  one 
day,  after  a  long  and  sombre  interview,  "  she  would 
not  allow  that  there  was  a  bright  side  to  the  moon." 

Jerrold  said  to  an  ardent  young  gentleman,  who 
burned  with  desire  to  see  himself  in  print :  "  Be  ad- 
vised by  me,  young  man  :  don't  take  down  the  shut- 
ters before  there  is  something  in  the  windows." 

While  Jerrold  was  discussing  one  day,  with  Mr. 
Selby,  the  vexed  question  of  adapting  dramatic  pieces 
from  the  French,  that  gentleman  insisted  upon  claim- 
ing some  of  his  characters  as  strictly  original  creations. 
"Do  you  remember  my  Baroness  in  Ask  No  Ques- 
tions ? "  said  Mr.  Selby.  "Yes,  indeed ;  I  don't  think  I 
ever  saw  a  piece  of  yours  without  being  struck  by  your 
barrenness"  was  the  retort. — Mark  Lemon's  Jest-book. 


132  BOOKS  AND  A  UTHOES. 


CONCEITED  ALAEMS  OF  DENNIS. 
John  Dennis,  the  dramatist,  had  a  most  extravagant 
and  enthusiastic  opinion  of  his  tragedy  of  Liberty 
Asserted.  He  imagined  that  there  were  in  it  some 
strokes  on  the  French  nation  so  severe,  that  they 
would  never  be  forgiven ;  and  that,  in  consequence, 
Louis  XIV.  would  never  make  peace  with  England 
unless  the  author  was  given  up  as  a  sacrifice  to  the 
national  resentment.  Accordiogly,  when  the  con- 
gress for  the  negotiation  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  was 
in  contemplation,  the  terrified  Dennis  waited  on  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  who  had  formerly  been  his 
patron,  to  entreat  the  intercession  of  his  Grace  with 
the  plenipotentiaries,  that  they  should  not  consent 
to  his  surrender  to  France  being  made  one  of  the 
conditions  of  the  treaty.  The  Duke  gravely  told 
the  dramatist  that  he  was  sorry  to  be  unable  to 
do  this  service,  as  he  had  no  influence  with  the 
Ministry  of  the  day ;  but,  he  added,  that  he  thought 
Dennis'  case  not  quite  desperate,  for,  said  his  Grace, 
"  I  have  taken  no  care  to  get  myself  excepted  in  the 
articles  of  peace,  and  yet  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
I  have  done  the  French  almost  as  much  damage  as 
Mr.  Dennis  himself."  At  another  time,  when  Dennis 
was  visiting  at  a  gentleman's  house  on  the  Sussex 
coast,  and  was  walking  on  the  beach,  he  saw  a  vessel, 
as  he  imagined,  sailing  towards  him.  The  self-im- 
portant timidity  of  Dennis  saw  in  this  incident  a 
reason  for  the  greatest  alarm  for  himself,  and  distrust 
of  his  friend.     Supposing  he  was  betrayed,  he  made 


SALE.  133 

the  best  of  Iiis  way  to  London,  without  even  taking 
leave  of  his  host,  whom  he  believed  to  have  lent  him- 
self to  a  plot  for  delivering  him  up  as  a  captive  to  a 
French  vessel  sent  on  purpose  to  carry  him  off. 


A  COMPOSITION  WITH  CONSCIENCE. 

LULLY,  the  composer,  being  once  thought  mortally  ill, 
his  friends  called  a  confessor,  who,  finding  the  pa- 
tient's state  critical,  and  his  mind  very  ill  at  ease, 
told  him  that  he  could  obtain  absolution  only  one  way 
— ^by  burning  aU  that  he  had  by  him  of  a  yet  unpub- 
lished opera.  The  remonstrance  of  his  friends  was  in 
vain  ;  Lully  burnt  the  music,  and  the  confessor  de- 
parted well  pleased.  The  composer,  however,  re- 
covered, and  told  one  of  his  visitors,  a  nobleman 
who  was  his  patron,  of  the  sacrifice  he  had  made  to 
the  demands  of  the  confessor.  "  And  so,"  cried  the 
nobleman,  "you  have  burnt  your  opera,  and  are  really 
such  a  blockhead  as  to  believe  in  the  absurdities  of  a 
monk ! "  "  Stop,  my  friend,  stop,"  returned  LuUy  ; 
"  let  me  whisper  in  your  ear :  I  knew  very  well  what 
I  was  about — I  have  another  copy." 


SALE,  THE  TEANSLATOR  OF  THE  KOEAN. 

The  learned  Sale,  who  first  gave  to  the  world  a 
genuine  version  of  the  Koran,  pursued  his  studies 
through  a  life  of  wants.  This  great  Orientalist,  when 
he  quitted  his  books  to  go  abroad,  too  often  wanted 
a  change  of  linen ;  and  he  frequently  wandered  the 


134  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

streets,  in  search  of  some  compassionate  friend,  who 
might  supply  him  with  the  meal  of  the  day. 


THE  LATTER  DAYS  OF  LOVELACE. 
Sir  Eichard  Lovelace,  who  in  1649  published  the 
elegant  collection  of  amorous  and  other  poems  en- 
titled Lucasta,  was  an  amiable  and  accomplished 
gentleman :  by  the  men  of  his  time  (the  time  of  the 
civil  wars)  respected  for  his  moral  worth  and  literary 
ability ;  by  the  fair  sex,  almost  idolized  for  the  ele- 
gance of  his  person  and  the  sweetness  of  his  manners. 
An  ardent  loyalist,  the  people  of  Kent  appointed  him 
to  present  to  the  House  of  Commons  their  petition 
for  the  restoration  of  Charles  and  the  settlement  of 
the  government.  The  petition  gave  offence,  and  the 
bearer  was  committed  to  the  Gate  House,  at  "West- 
minster, where  he  wrote  his  graceful  little  song, 
"  Loyalty  Confined,"  opening  thus  : 

"  When  love,  with  unconfined  wings, 

Hovers  within  my  gates, 
And  my  divine  Althea  brings 

To  whisper  at  my  grates  ; 
When  I  lie  tangled  in  her  hair. 

And  fettered  in  her  eye  ; 
The  birds  that  wanton  in  the  air 

Know  no  such  liberty." 

But  "diunerless  the  polished  Lovelace  died."  He 
obtained  his  liberation,  after  a  few  months'  confine- 
ment. By  that  time,  however,  he  had  consumed  all 
his  estates,  partly  by  furnishing  the  king  with  men 
and  money,  and  partly  by  giving  assistance  to  men  of 


LATTER  DAYS  OF  LOVELACE.         135 

talent  of  whatever  kind,  whom  he  found  in  difficul- 
ties. Very  soon,  he  became  himself  involved  in  the 
greatest  distress,  and  fell  into  a  deep  melancholy, 
which  brought  on  a  consumption,  and  made  him  as 
poor  in  person  as  in  purse,  till  he  even  became  the 
object  of  common  charity.  The  man  who  in  his  days 
of  gallantry  wore  cloth  of  gold,  was  now  naked,  or 
only  half  covered  with  filthy  rags ;  he  who  had 
thrown  splendour  on  palaces,  now  shrank  into  ob- 
scure and  dirty  alleys ;  he  who  had  associated  with 
princes,  banqueted  on  dainties,  been  the  patron  of 
the  indigent,  the  admiration  of  the  wise  and  brave, 
the  darling  of  the  chaste  and  fair — was  now  fain  to 
herd  with  beggars,  gladly  to  partake  of  their  coarse 
offals,  and  thankfully  to  receive  their  twice-given 
alms — 

"  To  hovel  him  with  swine  and  rogues  forlorn, 
In  short  and  musty  straw." 

Worn  out  with  misery,  he  at  length  expired,  in  1658, 
in  a  mean  and  wretched  lodging  in  Gunpowder  Alley, 
near  Shoe  Lane,  and  was  buried  at  the  west  end  of 
St.  Bride's  church.  Fleet  Street.  Such  is  the  ac- 
count of  Lovelace's  closing  days  given  by  Wood  in 
his  Athenm,  and  confinned  by  Aubrey  in  his  Lives  of 
Eminent  Men  ;  but  a  recent  editor  and  biographer  (the 
son  of  HazUtt)  pronounces,  though  he  does  not  prove, 
the  account  much  exaggerated. 


PAYMENT  IN  KIND. 
The  Empress  Catherine  of  Russia  having  sent,  as  a 


136  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

present  to  Voltaire,  a  small  ivory  box  made  by  her 
own  hands,  the  poet  induced  his  niece  to  instruct 
him  in  the  art  of  knitting  stockings;  and  he  had 
actually  half  finished  a  pair,  of  white  silk,  when  he 
became  completely  tired.  Unfinished  as  the  stock- 
ings were,  however,  he  sent  them  to  her  Majesty, 
accompanied  by  a  charmingly  gallant  poetical  epistle, 
in  which  he  told  her  that,  "  As  she  had  presented  him 
with  a  piece  of  man's  workmanship  made  by  a  woman, 
he  had  thought  it  his  duty  to  crave  her  acceptance, 
in  return,  of  a  piece  of  woman's  work  from  the  hands 
of  a  man." — When  Constantia  Phillips  was  in  a  state 
of  distress,  she  took  a  small  shop  near  Westminster 
HaU,  and  sold  books,  some  of  which  were  of  her  own 
writing.  During  this  time,  an  apothecary  who  had 
attended  her  once  when  she  was  ill,  came  to  her  and 
requested  payment  of  his  bill.  She  pleaded  her 
poverty ;  but  he  still  continued  to  press  her,  and 
urged  as  a  reason  for  his  urgency,  that  he  had  saved 
her  life.  "You  have,"  said  Constantia,  "you  have 
indeed  done  so :  I  acknowledge  it ;  and,  in  return, 
here  is  my  life  " — handing  him  at  the  same  time  the 
two  volumes  of  her  "  Memoirs,"  and  begging  that  he 
would  now  take  Tier  life  in  discharge  of  his  demand. 


chattekton's  pkofit  and  loss  reckoning. 

Chatterton,  the  marvellous  boy,  wrote  a  political 
essay  for  the  North  Briton^  Wilkes's  journal ;  but, 
though  accepted,  the  essay  was  not  printed,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  death  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  Chatterton's 


CARD-PLAYING  LORDS.  137 

patron.  The  youthful  patriot  thus  calculated  the  re- 
sults of  the  suppression  of  his  essay,  which  had  begun 
by  a  splendid  flourish  about  "a  spirited  people  freeing 
themselves  from  insupportable  slavery  :  " 
"Lost,  by  the  Lord  Mayor's  death,  in  this  essay,  £1  11  6 
Gained  in  elegies,        .  .£220 

Do.    in  essays,         .  .330 

5    5    0 


Am  glad  he  is  dead  by  £3  13    6 " 


LOCKE'S  REBUKE  OF  THE  CARD-PLAYING  LORDS. 
I.OCKE,  the  brilliant  author  of  the  Essay  on  the 
Human  Understanding,  was  once  introduced  by  Lord 
Shaftesbury  to  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  Lord 
Halifax.  But  the  three  noblemen,  instead  of  enter- 
ing into  conversation  on  Uterary  subjects  with  the 
philosopher,  very  soon  sat  down  to  cards.  Locke 
looked  on  for  a  short  time,  and  then  drew  out  his 
pocket-book  and  began  to  write  in  it  with  much  at- 
tention. One  of  the  players,  after  a  time,  observed 
this,  and  asked  what  he  was  writing.  "  My  Lord," 
answered  Locke,  "  I  am  endeavouring,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, to  profit  by  my  present  situation  ;  for,  having 
waited  with  impatience  for  the  honour  of  being  in 
company  with  the  greatest  geniuses  of  the  age,  I 
thought  I  could  do  nothing  better  than  to  write  down 
your  conversation ;  and,  indeed,  I  have  set  down  the 
substance  of  what  you  have  said  for  the  last  hour  or 
two."  The  three  noblemen,  fully  sensible  of  the  force 
of  the  rebuke,  immediately  left  the  cards  and  entered 


138  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

into  a  conversation  more  rational  and  more  befitting 
their  reputation  as  men  of  genius. 


HAYDN  AND  THE  SHIP  CAPTAIN. 

When  the  immortal  composer  Haydn  was  on  his 
visit  to  England,  in  1794,  his  chamber-door  was 
opened  one  morning  by  the  captain  of  an  East  India- 
man,  who  said,  "You  are  Mr.  Haydn?"  "Yes." 
"  Can  you  make  me  a  '  March,'  to  enliven  my  crew  ? 
You  shaU  have  thirty  guineas ;  but  I  must  have  it 
to-day,  as  to-morrow  I  sail  for  Calcutta."  Haydn 
agreed,  the  sailor  quitted  him,  the  composer  opened 
his  piano,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  march  was 
written.  He  appears,  however,  to  have  had  a  deli- 
cacy rare  among  the  musical  birds  of  passage  and  of 
prey  who  come  to  feed  on  the  unwieldy  wealth  of  Eng- 
land. Conceiving  that  the  receipt  of  a  sum  so  large 
as  thirty  guineas  for  a  labour  so  slight,  woxild  be  a 
species  of  plunder,  he  came  home  early  in  the  even- 
rug,  and  composed  other  two  marches,  in  order  to 
aUow  the  hberal  sea  captain  his  choice,  or  make  him 
take  all  the  three.  Early  next  morning,  the  pur- 
chaser came  back.  "  Where  is  my  march?  "  "  Here 
it  is."  "  Try  it  on  the  piano."  Haydn  played  it  over. 
The  captain  counted  down  the  thirty  guineas  on  the 
piano,  took  up  the  march,  and  went  down  stairs. 
Haydn  ran  after  him,  calling,  "  I  have  made  other 
two  marches,  both  better ;  come  up  and  hear  them, 
and  take  your  choice."  "  I  am  content  with  the  one 
I  have,"  returned  the  captain,  without  stopping.     "  I 


HAYDN.  139 

will  make  you  a  present  of  them,"  cried  the  composer. 
The  captain  only  ran  down  the  more  rapidly,  and 
left  Haydn  on  the  stairs.  Haydn,  opposing  obsti- 
nacy to  obstinacy,  determined  to  overcome  this  odd 
self-denial.  He  went  at  once  to  the  Exchange, 
found  out  the  name  of  the  ship,  made  his  marches 
into  a  roll,  and  sent  them,  with  a  polite  note,  to  the 
captain  on  board.  He  was  surprised  at  receiving, 
not  long  after,  his  envelope  unopened,  from  the  cap- 
tain, who  had  guessed  it  to  be  Haydn's;  and  the 
composer  tore  the  whole  packet  into  pieces  upon  the 
spot.  The  narrator  of  this  incident  adds  the  remark, 
that  "  though  the  anecdote  is  of  no  great  elevation, 
it  expresses  peculiarity  of  character;  and  certainly 
neither  the  composer  nor  the  captain  could  have 
been  easily  classed  among  the  common  or  the  vulgar 
of  men." 


HAYDN  S  DIPLOMA  PIECE  AT  OXFORD. 

During  his  stay  in  England,  Haydn  was  honoured  by 
the  diploma  of  Doctor  of  Music  from  the  University 
of  Oxford — a  distinction  not  obtained  even  by  Handel, 
and  it  is  said,  only  conferred  on  four  persons  during 
the  four  centuries  preceding.  It  is  customary  to  send 
some  specimen  of  composition  in  return  for  a  degree ; 
and  Haydn,  with  the  facility  of  perfect  skill,  sent 
back  a  page  of  music  so  curiously  contrived,  that  in 
whatever  way  it  was  read — from  the  top  to  the  bottom 
or  the  sides — it  exhibited  a  perfect  melody  and  accom- 
paniment. 


liO  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  BEGGAK  S  OPERA. 
It  was  Swift  that  first  suggested  to  Gay  the  idea  of 
the  Beggar's  Opera,  by  remarking,  what  an  odd,  pretty 
sort  of  a  thing  a  Newgate  pastoral  might  make ! 
' '  Gay,"  says  Pope, ' '  was  inclined  to  try  at  such  a  thing 
for  some  time  ;  but  afterwards  thought  it  would  be 
better  to  write  a  comedy  on  the  same  plan.  This  was 
what  gave  rise  to  the  Beggar''s  Opera.  He  began 
on  it ;  and  when  he  first  mentioned  it  to  Swift,  the 
doctor  did  not  much  like  the  project.  As  he  carried 
it  on,  he  showed  what  he  wrote  to  both  of  us  ;  and  we 
now  and  then  gave  a  correction,  or  a  word  or  two  of 
advice,  but  it  was  whoUy  of  his  own  writing.  When 
it  was  done,  neither  of  us  thought  it  would  succeed. 
We  showed  it  to  Congreve,  who,  after  reading  it  over, 
said,  '  It  would  either  take  greatly,  or  be  damned 
confoundedly.'  We  were  aU,  at  the  first  sight  of  it, 
in  great  imcertainty  of  the  event,  tiU  we  were  very- 
much  encouraged  by  hearing  the  Duke  of  Argyle, 
who  sat  in  the  next  box  to  us,  say,  '  It  wiU  do — I  see 
it  in  the  eyes  of  them.'  This  was  a  good  while  before 
the  first  act  was  over,  and  so  gave  us  ease  soon  ;  for 
the  Duke  (besides  his  own  good  taste)  has  as  parti- 
cular a  knack  as  any  one  now  living,  in  discovering 
the  taste  of  the  public.  He  was  quite  right  in  this, 
as  usual ;  the  good  nature  of  the  audience  appeared 
stronger  and  stronger  every  act,  and  ended  in  a 
clamour  of  applause." 


KILLING  NO  MURDER.  141 


THE  TWO  SHERIDANS. 
Sheridan  made  his  appearance  one  day  in  a  pair  of 
new  boots  ;  these  attracting  the  notice  of  some  of  his 
friends  :  "Now  guess,"  said  he,  "how  I  came  by  these 
boots  ?  "  Many  probable  guesses  were  then  ventured, 
but  in  vain.  "No,"  said  Sheridan,  "no,  you  have 
not  hit  it,  nor  ever  will.  I  bought  them,  and  paid 
for  them  !  "  Sheridan  was  very  desirous  that  his  son 
Tom  should  marry  a  young  lady  of  large  fortune,  but 
knew  that  Miss  CaUander  had  won  his  son's  heart. 
Sheridan,  expatiating  once  on  the  folly  of  his  son,  at 
length  broke  out :  "  Tom,  if  you  marry  Caroline  Cal- 
lander, rn  cut  you  off  with  a  shilling  !"  Tom,  look- 
ing maliciously  at  his  father,  said,  "  Then,  sir,  you 
must  borrow  it."  In  a  large  party  one  evening,  the 
conversation  turned  upon  young  men's  allowances  at 
college.  Tom  deplored  the  ill-judging  parsimony  of 
many  parents  in  that  respect.  "  I  am  sure,  Tom,"  said 
his  father,  "you  have  no  reason  to  complain  ;  I  always 
allowed  you  £800  a-year."  "  Yes,  father,  I  confess 
you  allowed  it ;  but  then — it  was  never  paid ! " 


KILLING  NO  MUKDER. 

In  a  journey  which  Mademoiselle  Scude'ry,  the  Sappho 
of  the  French,  made  along  with  her  no  less  celebrated 
brother,  a  curious  incident  befeU  them  at  an  inn  at  a 
great  distance  from  Paris.  Their  conversation  hap- 
pened one  evening  to  turn  upon  a  romance  which  they 
were  then  jointly  composing,  to  the  hero  of  which 


142  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

they  had  given  the  name  of  Prince  Mazare.  "  What 
shall  we  do  with  Prince  Mazare  ?  "  said  Mademoiselle 
Scudery  to  her  brother.  "Is  it  not  better  that  he 
should  fall  by  poison,  than  by  the  poignard  ?  "  "  It  is 
not  time  yet,"  replied  the  brother,  "  for  that  business  ; 
when  it  is  necessary  we  can  despatch  him  as  we  please ; 
but  at  present  we  have  not  quite  done  with  him." 
Two  merchants  in  the  next  chamber,  overhearing  this 
conversation,  concluded  that  they  had  formed  a  con- 
spiracy for  the  murder  of  some  prince  whose  real  name 
they  disguised  under  that  of  Mazare.  Full  of  this 
important  discovery,  they  imparted  their  suspicions 
to  the  host  and  hostess  ;  and  it  was  resolved  to  inform 
the  police  of  what  had  happened.  The  police  officers, 
eager  to  show  their  diligence  and  activity,  put  the 
travellers  immediately  under  arrest,  and  conducted 
them  under  a  strong  escort  to  Paris.  It  was  not  with- 
out difficulty  and  expense  that  they  there  procured 
their  liberation,  and  leave  for  the  future  to  hold  an 
unlimited  right  and  power  over  all  the  princes  and 
personages  in  the  realms  of  romance. 


■  SENSmVENESS  TO  CRITICISM. 

Hawkeswoeth  and  StiUingfleet  died  of  criticism ; 
Tasso  was  driven  mad  by  it ;  Newton,  the  calna 
Newton,  kept  hold  of  life  only  by  the  sufferance  of  a 
friend  who  withheld  a  criticism  on  his  chronology, 
for  no  other  reason  than  his  conviction  that  if  it  were 
published  while  he  lived,  it  would  put  an  end  to  him  ; 
and  every  one  knows  the  effect  on  the  sensitive  nature 


BUTLER  AND  BUCKINGHAM.        143 

of  Keats,  of  the  attacks  on  his  Endymion.  Tasso 
had  a  vast  and  prolific  imagination,  accompanied  with 
an  excessively  hypochondriacal  temperament.  The 
composition  of  his  great  epic,  the  Jerusalem  Deli- 
vered, by  giving  scope  to  the  boldest  flights,  and  call- 
ing into  play  the  energies  of  his  exalted  and  enthu- 
siastic genius — whilst  with  equal  ardour  it  led  him  to 
entertain  hopes  of  immediate  and  extensive  fame — 
laid  most  probably  the  foundation  of  his  subsequent 
derangement.  His  susceptibility  and  tenderness  of 
feeling  were  great ;  and,  when  his  sublime  work  met 
with  unexpected  opposition,  and  was  even  treated 
with  contempt  and  derision,  the  fortitude  of  the  poet 
was  not  proof  against  the  keen  sense  of  disappoint- 
ment. He  twice  attempted  to  please  his  ignorant 
and  malignant  critics  by  recomposing  his  poem ;  and 
during  the  hurry,  the  anguish,  and  the  irritation 
attending  these  efforts,  the  vigour  of  a  great  mind 
was  entirely  exhausted,  and  in  two  years  after  the 
publication  of  the  Jerusalem,  the  unhappy  author 
became  an  object  of  pity  and  terror.  Newton,  with 
all  his  philosophy,  was  so  sensible  to  critical  remarks, 
that  Whiston  tells  us  he  lost  his  favour,  which  he  had 
enjoyed  for  twenty  years,  by  contradicting  him  in  his 
old  age  ;  for  "no  man  was  of  a  more  fearful  temper." 


BUTLEE  AND  BUCKINGHAM. 

Of  Butler,  the  author  of  Hudibras  —  which  Dr. 
Johnson  terms  "  one  of  those  productions  of  which 
a  nation  may  justly  boast " — little  further  is  known 


144  BOOKS  AND  AUTHOBS. 

than  that  his  genius  was  not  sufficient  to  rescue  him 
from  its  too  frequent  attendant,  poverty ;  he  lived 
in  obscurity,  and  died  in  want.  Wycherley  often 
represented  to  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  how  well 
Butler  had  deserved  of  the  royal  family  by  writing 
his  inimitable  Hudibras,  and  that  it  was  a  disgrace 
to  the  Court  that  a  person  of  his  loyalty  and  genius 
should  remain  in  obscurity  and  suffer  the  wants 
which  he  did.  The  Duke,  thus  pressed,  promised  to 
recommend  Butler  to  his  Majesty  ;  and  Wycherley,  in 
hopes  to  keep  his  Grace  steady  to  his  word,  prevailed 
on  him  to  fix  a  day  when  he  might  introduce  the 
modest  and  tmfortunate  poet  to  his  new  patron.  The 
place  of  meeting  fixed  upon  was  the  "Roebuck."  Butler 
and  his  friend  attended  punctually ;  the  Duke  joined 
them,  when,  unluckily,  the  door  of  the  room  being 
open,  his  Grace  observed  one  of  his  acquaintances 
pass  by  with  two  ladies ;  on  which  he  immediately 
quitted  his  engagement,  and  from  that  time  to  the 
day  of  his  death  poor  Butler  never  derived  the  least 
benefit  from  his  promise. 


THE  MEKMAID  CLUB. 

The  celebrated  club  at  the  "  Mermaid,"  as  has  been 
well  observed  by  Gifford,  "  combined  more  talent  and 
genius,  perhaps,  than  ever  met  together  before  or 
since."  The  institution  originated  with  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh ;  and  here,  for  many  years,  Ben  Jonson  regu- 
larly repaired  with  Shakspeare,  Beaumont,  Fletcher, 
Selden,  Cotton,  Carew,  Martin,  Donne,  and  many 


THE  MERMAID  CLUB.  145 

others  whose  names,  even  at  this  distant  period,  call 
up  a  mingled  feeling  of  reverence  and  respect.  Here, 
in  the  full  flow  and  confidence  of  friendship,  the  lively 
and  interesting  "wit-combats"  took  place  between 
Shakspeare  and  Jonson;  and  hither,  in  probable 
allusion  to  some  of  them,  Beaumont  fondly  lets  his 
thoughts  wander  in  his  letter  to  Johnson  from  the 
country : — 

"  What  things  have  we  seen 
Done  at  the  Mermaid  ?  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whom  they  came. 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest." 

For  the  expression,  "  wit-combats,"  we  must  refer  to 
Fuller,  who  in  his  "Worthies,"  describing  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Bard  of  Avon,  says  :  "  Many  were  the  wit- 
combats  between  Shakspeare  and  Ben  Jonson.  I 
behold  them  like  a  Spanish  great  galleon,  and  an 
English  man-of-war.  Master  Jonson,  like  the  former, 
was  built  far  higher  in  learning,  solid,  but  slow  in  his 
performances ;  Shakspeare,  like  the  latter,  less  in 
bulk  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with,  all  tides, 
tack  about  and  take  advantage  of  aU  winds,  by  the 
quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention."  With  what  de- 
light would  after  generations  have  hung  over  any 
well- authenticated  instances  of  these  "wit-combats!" 
But,  unfortunately,  nothing  on  which  we  can  depend 
has  descended  to  us. 


14G  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

porson's  memory. 
Professor  Porson,  the  great  Grsecist,  when  a  boy 
at  Eton,  displayed  the  most  astonishing  powers  of 
memory.  In  going  up  to  a  lesson  one  day,  he  was 
accosted  by  a  boy  in  the  same  form :  "  Person,  what 
have  you  got  there  ?  "  "  Horace."  "  Let  me  look  at 
it."  Person  handed  the  book  to  his  comrade ;  who, 
pretending  to  return  it,  dexterously  substituted  an- 
other in  its  place,  with  which  Person  proceeded. 
Being  called  on  by  the  master,  he  read  and  construed 
the  tenth  Ode  of  the  first  Book  very  regularly.  Ob- 
serving that  the  class  laughed,  the  master  said,  "  Per- 
son, you  seem  to  me  to  be  reading  on  one  side  of  the 
page,  while  I  am  leokiag  at  the  ether ;  pray  whose 
edition  have  you?"  Person  hesitated.  "Let  me 
see  it,"  rejoined  the  master ;  who,  to  his  great  sur- 
prise, found  it  to  be  an  English  Ovid.  Person  was 
ordered  to  go  on  ;  which  he  did,  easUy,  correctly,  and 
promptly,  to  the  end  of  the  Ode.  Much  mere  re- 
markable feats  of  memory  than  this,  however,  have 
been  recorded  of  Porson's  manhood. 


WYCHERLEY'S  "WOOING. 

"WycHEELEY  being  at  Tunbridge  for  the  benefit  of  his 
health,  after  his  return  from  the  Continental  trip  the 
cost  of  which  the  king  had  defrayed,  was  walking  one 
day  with  his  friend,  Mr.  Fairbeard,  of  Gray's  Inn. 
Just  as  they  came  up  to  a  bookseller's  shop,  the 
Countess  of  Drogheda,  a  young,  rich,  noble,   and 


A  CARO  USE  A  T  BOILEA  ITS.  147 

lovely  ■widow,  came  to  the  bookseller  and  inquired  for 
the  Plain  Dealer — a  well-known  comedy  of  "Wycher- 
ley's.  "Madam,"  said  Mr.  Fairbeard,  "since  you  are 
for  the  Plain  Dealer^  there  he  is  for  you" — push- 
ing TVycherley  towards  her.  "  Yes,"  said  TTycherley, 
"  this  lady  can  bear  plain  dealing  ;  for  she  appears  to 
me  to  be  so  accomplished,  that  what  would  be  com- 
plunent  said  to  others,  would  be  plain  deahng  spoken 
to  her."  "  No,  truly,  sir,"  said  the  Countess  ;  "  I  am 
not  without  my  faults,  any  more  than  the  rest  of  my 
sex ;  and  yet  I  love  plain  dealing,  and  am  never  more 
fond  of  it  than  when  it  tells  me  of  them."  "  Then, 
Madam,"  said  Fairbeard,  "  You  and  the  Plain  Dealer 
seem  designed  by  Heaven  for  each  other."  In  short, 
AVycherley  walked  with  the  Countess,  waited  upon 
her  home,  visited  her  daily  while  she  was  at  Tun- 
bridge,  and  afterwards  when  she  went  to  London ; 
where,  in  a  httle  time,  a  marriage  was  concluded  be- 
tween them.     The  marriage  was  not  a  happy  one. 


A  CAROUSE  AT  BOILEAU'S. 

BoiLKAXT,  the  celebrated  French  comedian,  usually 
passed  the  summer  at  his  villa  of  Auteuil,  which  is 
pleasantly  situated  at  the  entrance  of  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne.  Here  he  took  delight  in  assembling  under 
his  roof  the  most  eminent  geniuses  of  the  age ;  espe- 
cially Chapelle,  Racine,  Moliere,  and  La  Fontaine. 
Racine  the  younger  gives  the  following  account  of  a 
droll  circumstance  that  occurred  at  supper  at  Auteuil 
with  these  guests.     "  At  this  supper,"  he  says,  "  at 


148  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

which  my  father  was  not  present,  the  wise  BoUeau 
was  no  more  master  of  himseK  than  any  of  his  guests. 
After  the  wine  had  led  them  into  the  gravest  strain 
of  moralising,  they  agreed  that  life  was  but  a  state 
of  misery ;  that  the  greatest  happiness  consisted  in 
having  been  born,  and  the  next  greatest  in  an  early 
death ;  and  they  one  and  all  formed  the  heroic  resolu- 
tion of  throwing  themselves  without  loss  of  time  into 
the  river.  It  was  not  far  off,  and  they  actually  went 
thither.  Mohere,  however,  remarked  that  such  a 
noble  action  ought  not  to  be  buried  in  the  obscurity 
of  night,  but  was  worthy  of  being  performed  in  the 
face  of  day.  This  observation  produced  a  pause  ;  one 
looked  at  the  other,  and  said,  '  He  is  right.'  '  Gentle- 
men,' said  Chapelle,  '  we  had  better  wait  till  morning 
to  throw  ourselves  into  the  river,  and  meantime  re- 
turn and  finish  our  wine ; '  "  but  the  river  was  not 
revisited. 


Thomson's  indolence. 

The  author  of  the  Seasons  and  the  Castle  of  Indo' 
lence,  paid  homage  in  the  latter  admirable  poem  to 
the  master-passion  or  habit  of  his  own  easy  nature. 
Thomson  was  so  excessively  lazy,  that  he  is  recorded 
to  have  been  seen  standing  at  a  peach-tree,  with  both 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  eating  the  fruit  as  it  grew. 
At  another  time,  being  found  in  bed  at  a  very  late 
hour  of  the  day,  when  he  was  asked  why  he  did  not 
get  up,  his  answer  was,  "  Troth,  man,  I  see  nae  motive 
for  rising  1 " 


A  LEARNED  YOUNG  LADY.  149 


A  LEAENED  YOUNG  LADY. 
Fraulein  Dorothea  Schlozer,  a  Hanoverian  lady, 
was  thought  worthy  of  the  highest  academical  hon- 
ours of  Gottingen  University,  and,  at  the  jubilee  of 
1787,  she  had  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy 
conferred  upon  her,  when  only  seventeen  years  of  age. 
The  daughter  of  the  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  that 
University,  she  from  her  earliest  years  discovered  an 
uncommon  genius  for  learning.  Before  she  was  three 
years  of  age,  she  was  taught  Low  German,  a  language 
almost  foreign  to  her  own.  Before  she  was  six,  she 
had  learned  French  and  German,  and  then  she  began 
geometry;  and  after  receiving  ten  lessons,  she  was 
able  to  answer  very  difficult  questions.  The  English, 
Italian,  Swedish,  and  Dutch  languages  were  next 
acquired,  with  singular  rapidity  ;  and  before  she  was 
fourteen,  she  knew  Latin  and  Greek,  and  had  become 
a  good  classical  scholar.  Besides  her  knowledge  of 
languages,  she  made  herself  acquainted  with  almost 
every  branch  of  polite  literature,  as  well  as  many  of 
the  sciences,  particularly  mathematics.  She  also  at- 
tained great  proficiency  in  mineralogy ;  and,  during 
a  sojourn  of  six  weeks  in  the  Hartz  Forest,  she  visited 
the  deepest  mines,  in  the  common  habit  of  a  labourer, 
and  examined  the  whole  process  of  the  work.  Her 
surprising  talents  becoming  the  general  topic  of  con- 
versation, she  was  proposed,  by  the  great  Orientalist 
Michaelis,  as  a  proper  subject  for  academical  honours. 
The  Philosophical  Faculty,  of  which  the  Professor  was 
Dean,  was  deemed  the  fittest ;  and  a  day  was  fixed 


150  ■  BOOKS  AND  A  UTHORS. 

lot  her  examination,  in  presence  of  all  the  Professors. 
She  was  introduced  by  Michaelis  himself,  and  distin- 
guished, as  a  lady,  with  the  highest  seat.  Several 
questions  were  first  proposed  to  her  in  mathematics ; 
all  of  which  she  answered  to  satisfaction.  After  this, 
she  gave  a  free  translation  of  the  thirty-seventh  Ode 
of  the  first  Book  of  Horace,  and  explained  it.  She 
was  then  examined  ia  various  branches  of  art  and 
science,  when  she  displayed  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  subjects.  The  examination  lasted  two  hours 
and  a  half ;  and  at  the  end,  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  was  unanimously  conferred  upon  her,  and 
she  was  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  laurel  by  Fraulein 
Michaelis,  at  the  request  of  the  Professors. 


A  HARD  HIT  AT  POPE. 
Pope  was  one  evening  at  Button's  Coffee-house,  where 
he  and  a  set  of  literati  had  got  poring  over  a  Latin 
manuscript,  in  which  they  had  found  a  passage  that 
none  of  them  could  comprehend.  A  young  officer, 
who  heard  their  conference,  begged  that  he  might  be 
permitted  to  look  at  the  passage.  "  Oh,"  said  Pope, 
sarcastically,  "byaU  means;  pray  let  the  young  gentle- 
man look  at  it."  Upon  which  the  officer  took  up  the 
manuscript,  and,  considering  it  awhile,  said  there  only 
wanted  a  note  of  interrogation  to  make  the  whole  in- 
telligible :  which  was  really  the  case.  "  And  pray, 
Master,"  says  Pope  with  a  sneer,  "  what  is  a  note  of 
interrogation  V — "A  note  of  interrogation,"  replied 
the  yoimg  fellow,  with  a  look  of  great  contempt,  "  is 
a  little  crooked  thing  that  asks  questions." 


DRYDEN  DRUBBED.  151 


DKYDEN  DRUBBED. 
*'  Drtden,"  says  Leigh  Hunt,  "  is  identified  with  the 
neighbourhood  of  Covent  Garden.  He  presided  in  the 
chair  at  Eussell  Street  (Will's  Coffee-house) ;  his  plays 
came  out  in  the  theatre  at  the  other  end  of  it ;  he 
lived  in  Gerrard  Street,  which  is  not  far  off ;  and,  alas 
for  the  anti-climax !  he  was  beaten  by  hired  bravos 
in  Kose  Street,  now  called  Eose  Alley.  The  outrage 
perpetrated  upon  the  sacred  shoulders  of  the  poet 
was  the  work  of  Lord  Rochester,  and  originated  in 
a  mistake  not  creditable  to  that  would-be  great  man 
and  dastardly  debauchee."  Dryden,  it  seems,  obtained 
the  reputation  of  being  the  author  of  the  Essay  on 
Satire,  in  which  Lord  Rochester  was  severely  dealt 
with,  and  which  was,  in  reality,  written  by  Lord 
Mulgrave,  afterwards  the  Duke  of  Buckinghamshire. 
Rochester  meditated  on  the  innocent  Dryden  a  base 
and  cowardly  revenge,  and  thus  coolly  expressed  his 
intent  in  one  of  his  letters  :  "  You  write  me  word  that 
I  am  out  of  favour  with  a  certain  poet,  whom  I  have 
admired  for  the  disproportion  of  him  and  his  attri- 
butes. He  is  a  rarity  which  I  cannot  but  be  fond  of, 
as  one  would  be  of  a  hog  that  could  fiddle,  or  a  sing- 
ing owl.  If  he  falls  on  me  at  the  blunt,  which  is  his 
very  good  weapon  in  wit,  I  wUl  forgive  him  if  you 
please,  and  leave  the  repartee  to  Black  Will  with  a 
cudgeV  "  In  pursuance  of  this  infamous  resolution," 
says  Sir  Walter  Scott,  "  upon  the  night  of  the  18th 
December  1679,  Dryden  was  waylaid  by  hired  ruf- 
fians, and  severely  beaten,  as  he  passed  through  Rose 


152  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

Street,  Covent  Garden,  returning  from  Will's  Coffee- 
house to  his  own  house  in  Gerrard  Street.  A  reward 
of  fifty  pounds  was  in  vain  offered  in  the  London 
Gazette  and  other  newspapers,  for  the  discovery  of 
the  perpetrators  of  this  outrage.  The  town  was,  how- 
ever, at  no  loss  to  pitch  upon  Eochester  as  the  em- 
ployer of  the  bravos  ;  with  whom  the  public  suspicion 
joined  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  equally  concerned 
in  the  supposed  affront  thus  revenged.  ...  It  wHl 
certainly  be  admitted  that  a  man,  surprised  in  the 
dark,  and  beaten  by  ruifians,  loses  no  honour  by  such 
a  misfortune.  But  if  Dryden  had  received  the  same 
discipline  from  Rochester's  own  hand,  without  resent- 
ingitjhis  drubbing  could  not  havebeen  more  frequently 
made  a  matter  of  reproach  to  him ;  a  sign,  surely,  of 
the  penury  of  subjects  for  satire  in  his  life  and  cha- 
racter, since  an  accident,  which  might  have  happened 
to  the  greatest  hero  that  ever  lived,  was  resorted  to 
as  an  imputation  on  his  character." 


EOGEKS  AND  "  JUNIUS. 

SAiruEL  EOGERS  was  requested  by  Lady  Holland  to 
ask  Sir  Philip  Francis  whether  he  was  the  author  of 
Junius'  Letters.  The  poet,  meeting  Sir  Philip,  ap- 
proached the  ticklish  subject  thus  :  "  Will  you.  Sir 
Philip — wUl  your  kindness  excuse  my  addressing  to 
you  a  single  question  ?  "  "At  your  peril.  Sir  ! "  was 
the  harsh  and  curt  reply  of  the  knight.  The  intimi- 
dated bard  retreated  upon  his  friends,  who  eagerly 
inquired  of  him  the  success  of  his  application.     "  I 


ALFIERFS  HAIR.  153 

do  not  know,"  Rogers  said,  *'  whether  he  is  Junius  ; 
but,  if  he  be,  he  is  certainly  Junius  Brutus." 


ALFIERl'S  HAIR. 

Alfieri,  the  greatest  poet  modern  Italy  produced, 
delighted  in  eccentricities,  not  always  of  the  most 
amiable  kind.  One  evening,  at  the  house  of  the 
Princess  Carignan,  he  was  leaning,  in  one  of  his  silent 
moods,  against  a  sideboard  decorated  with  a  rich  tea 
service  of  china,  when,  by  a  sudden  movement  of  his 
long  loose  tresses,  he  threw  down  one  of  the  cups. 
The  lady  of  the  mansion  ventured  to  tell  him,  that  he 
had  spoiled  the  set,  and  had  better  have  broken  them 
all.  The  words  were  no  sooner  said,  than  Alfieri, 
without  reply  or  change  of  countenance,  swept  off  the 
whole  service  upon  the  floor.  His  hair  was  fated  to 
bring  another  of  his  eccentricities  into  play.  He 
went  one  night,  alone,  to  the  theatre  at  Turin  ;  and 
there,  hanging  carelessly  with  his  head  backwards 
over  the  comer  of  the  box,  a  lady  in  the  next  seat  on 
the  other  side  of  the  partition,  who  had  on  other  oc- 
casions made  attempts  to  attract  his  attention,  broke 
out  into  violent  and  repeated  encomiums  on  his 
auburn  locks,  which  were  flowing  down  close  to  her 
hand.  Alfieri,  however,  spoke  not  a  word,  and  con- 
tinued his  position  tiU  he  left  the  theatre.  Next 
morning,  the  lady  received  a  parcel,  the  contents  of 
which  she  found  to  be  the  tresses  which  she  had  so 
much  admired,  and  which  the  erratic  poet  had  cut  off 
close  to  his  head.    No  bUlet  accompanied  the  gift ; 


154  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 

but  it  could  not  have  beeii  more  clearly  said,  "Tf 
you  like  the  hair,  here  it  is  ;  but,  for  Heaven's  sake, 
leave  vie  alone  !  " 


Smollett's  hard  foetui^s. 

Smollett,  perhaps  one  of  the  most  popular  authors  by 
profession  that  ever  wrote,  furnishes  a  sad  instance  of 
the  insufficiency  of  even  the  greatest  literary  favour,  in 
the  times  in  which  he  WTOte,  to  procure  those  temporal 
comforts  on  which  the  happiness  of  life  so  much  de- 
pends. "  Had  some  of  those,"  he  says,  "  who  were 
pleased  to  call  themselves  my  friends,  been  at  any 
pains  to  deserve  the  character,  and  told  me  ingenu- 
ously what  I  had  to  expect  in  the  capacity  of  an 
author,  when  first  I  professed  myself  of  that  venerable 
fraternity,  I  should  in  all  probability  have  spared  my- 
self the  incredible  labour  and  chagria  I  have  since 
undergone."  "  Of  praise  and  censure  both,"  he  writes 
at  another  time,  "  I  am  sick  indeed,  and  wish  to  God 
that  my  circumstances  would  allow  me  to  consign 
my  pen  to  oblivion."  When  he  had  worn  himself 
down  in  the  sei-vice  of  the  public  or  the  booksellers, 
there  scarce  was  left  of  all  his  slender  remunerations, 
at  the  last  stage  of  life,  enough  to  convey  him  to  a 
cheap  country  and  a  restoring  air  on  the  Continent. 
Gradually  perishing  in  a  foreign  land,  neglected  by  the 
public  that  admired  him,  deriving  no  resources  from 
the  booksellers  who  were  drawing  the  large  profits 
of  his  works,  Smollett  threw  out  his  injured  feelings 
in  the  character  of  Bramble,  in  Humphrey  Clinker: 


JERROLD'S  REBUKE.  155 

the  warm  generosity  of  his  temper,  but  not  his  genius, 
seeming  to  fleet  away  with  his  breath.  And  when 
he  died,  and  his  widow,  in  a  foreign  land,  was  raising 
a  plain  memorial  over  his  ashes,  her  love  and  piety 
but  made  the  little  less;  and  she  perished  in  unbe- 
friended  sohtude.  "  There  are  indeed,"  says  D'Israeli, 
"grateful  feelings  in  the  pubhc  at  large  for  a 
favourite  author;  but  the  awful  testimony  of  these 
feelings,  by  its  gradual  process,  must  appear  beyond 
the  grave!  They  visit  the  column  consecrated  by 
his  name — and  his  features  are  most  loved,  most  vene- 
rated, in  the  bust!" 


jereold's  rebuke  to  a  eude  inteudee. 

Douglas  Jerrold  and  some  friends  were  dining  once 
at  a  tavern,  and  had  a  private  room ;  but  after  dinner 
the  landlord,  on  the  plea  that  the  house  was  partly 
under  repair,  requested  permission  that  a  stranger 
might  take  a  chop  in  the  apartment,  at  a  separate 
table.  The  company  gave  the  required  permission; 
and  the  stranger,  a  man  of  commonplace  aspect,  was 
brought  in,  ate  his  chop  in  silence,  and  then  fell 
asleep — snoring  so  loudly  and  discordantly  that  the 
conversation  could  with  difficulty  be  prosecuted. 
Some  gentleman  of  the  party  made  a  noise  ;  and  the 
stranger,  starting  out  of  his  nap,  called  out  to  Jerrold, 
"  I  know  you,  Mr.  Jerrold,  I  know  you ;  but  you 
shaU  not  make  a  butt  of  me  !"  "  Then  don't  bring 
your  hog's  head  in  here  !"  was  the  instant  answer  of 
the  wit. 


156  BOOKS  AND  AUTHORS. 


AN  ODD  PRESENT  TO  SHENSTONE. 
An  Edinburgh  acquaintance  is  related  to  have  sent 
to  Shenstone,  in  1761,  as  a  small  stimulus  to  their 
friendship,  "  a  little  provision  of  the  best  Preston 
Pans  snuif ,  both  toasted  and  untoasted,  in  four  bottles ; 
with  one  bottle  of  Highland  Snishon,  and  four  bottles 
Bonnels.  Please  to  let  me  know  which  sort  is  most 
agreeable  to  you,  that  I  may  send  you  a  fresh  sup- 
ply in  good  time." 


WALLER,  THE  COURTIER-POET. 

Waller  wrote  a  fine  panegyric  on  Cromwell,  when 
he  assumed  the  Protectorship.  Upon  the  restoration 
of  Charles,  Waller  wrote  another  in  praise  of  him, 
and  presented  it  to  the  King  in  person.  After  his 
Majesty  had  read  the  poem,  he  told  Waller  that  he 
wrote  a  better  on  Cromwell.  "  Please  your  Majesty," 
said  Waller,  like  a  true  courtier,  "  we  poets  are  al- 
ways more  happy  in  fiction  than  in  truth." 


THE  END. 


MURKAY  AND  GIBB,  EDINBURGH, 
PRINTERS  TO  IIEE  MAJESTY'S  STATIONERY  OFFICE, 


CATALOGUE    OF 
POPULAR  AND  STANDARD  BOOKS 


PUBLISHED   BY 


WILLIAM    P.    NIMMO, 

EDINBURGH, 

AND  SOLD  BY  ALL  BOOKSELLERS. 

A  SUPERB  -GIFT-BOOK. 

JUST  READY, 

Beautifully  printed  on  the  finest  toned  paper,  and  elegantly  bound 
in  cloth  extra,  gilt  edges,  price  One  Guinea ;  or  Turkey  morocco 
extra,  price  Two  Guineas ;  or  in  clan  tartan  enamelled,  with 
photograph  of  the  Poet,  price  Two  Guineas, 

A  HANDSOME  DRAWING-ROOM  EDITION  OF 

THE       POEMS      AND       SONGS 


ROBERT     BURNS. 

WITH   ORIGINAL   ILLUSTRATIONS  BY   THE  MOST 
DISTINGUISHED  SCOTTISH  ARTISTS. 


The  '  EDINA '  Edition  of  Burns  contains  Sixty-four  entirely 
Original  Illustrations,  drawn  expressly  for  it;  and  the  names  of  the 
Artists  who  have  kindly  given  their  assistance — comprising  several 
of  the  most  distinguished  members  of  the  lloyal  Scottish  Academy 
—are  a  suflBlcient  guarantee  that  they  are  executed  in  the  highest 
style  of  art.  The  engraving  of  the  Illustrations  is  executed  by  Mr. 
li.  Patebson;  and  the  volume  is  printed  by  Mr.  E.  Clakk,  Edinburgh. 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PEESS  ON  THE  'EDDTA  BUMS.' 

The  Times. 

'  The  arts  of  the  printer  and  engraver  show  to  advantage  in  this 
Scotch  edition  of  the  Poems  and  Songs  of  Bums.  The  Artists  who 
supply  the  Illustrations  are  all  of  the  land  of  Bums,  and  the  book 
owes  nothing  to  handicraftsmen  on  this  side  the  Tweed.  Many  of  the 
engravings  are  excellent,  particularly  the  landscape  sketches.  Alto- 
gether the  book  is  a  handsome  one,  and  to  the  "Scot  abroad"  it  would 
be  difficult  to  make  a  more  acceptable  present.' 
Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

'Mr.  Nimmo's  illustrated  edition  of  the  "Poems  and  Songs  of  Eobert 
Burns"  is  a  book  upon  which  the  publi-sher  has  evidentlj'  bestowed 
great  care.  Limiting  himself  to  the  art  and  industry  of  his  own 
country,  he  has  endeavoured  to  unite  Scotland's  best  draughtsmen, 
engravers,  and  printers  in  the  production  of  a  worthy  edition  of 
Scotland's  greatest  and  dearest  poet.  The  result  is  very  satisfactory. 
It  is  certainly  a  very  meritorious  production,  and  one  which  does 
great  credit  to  the  publisher.' 

The  Examiner. 

'Of  all  the  handsome  reprints  of  the  works  of  "nature's  own"  bard, 
this  "  Edina  "  edition  of  the  poems  and  songs  of  Bums  is,  perhaps,  the 
handsomest  yet  produced.  Beautifully  printed,  and  profusely  illus- 
trated by  some  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  Scotch  academicians, 
it  forms  a  shrine  worthy  of  the  genius  of  the  "poet  of  the  land  of  the 
mountain  and  the  flood." ' 

Court  Circular. 

'  If  we  were  asked  what  is  the  best  and  handsomest  edition  of 
Bums  extant,  we  should  answer — and  we  call  the  sjiecial  attention 
of  the  reader  to  the  distinguishing  title  which  the  publisher  has 
affixed  to  this  volume— the  "  Edina."  ' 

Saturday  Review. 

'  This  is,  as  it  ought  to  be,  a  Scotch  edition.  It  is  of  Scotland, 
decidedly  Scottish.  Scotch  as  to  author,  printer,  publisher,  and  illus- 
trator. The  whole  thing  has  a  decidedly  pretty  and  whiskyish  look; 
or,  rather,  to  speak  more  decorously,  it  recalls  the  laud  of  the  heather 
and  the  flood  throughout.' 

Illustrated  London  News. 

'The  magnificent  "Edina"  edition  of  his  works  is  a  noble  tribute 
rendered  to  the  genius  of  Burns  by  the  graphic  and  typographic  skiU 
and  taste  of  Edinburgh,  the  city  which  gave  him  an  admiring  welcome 
in  his  lifetime,  and  where  his  monument  has  been  erected.' 
Coiirt  Joiirnal. 

» If  Bums  could  have  lived  to  see  himself  in  such  a  jacket  of  gold 
and  red  as  Jlr.  Nimmo  of  Edinburgh  puts  upon  him  this  year,  he 
would,  we  think,  have  shed  a  tear  of  gratitude,  for  pride  would  have 
been  foreign  to  so  great  a  heart.' 

Illustrated  Times. 

'Many  editions  of  the  works  of  the  immortal  Scottish  bard  have 
passed  under  our  notice  within  the  last  few  years,  but  none  equal  to 
the  "  Edina  Burns,"  just  published  by  Mr.  Nimmo.' 
2 


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With  Original  Illustrations  by  Gourlay  Steeli,  K.S.A.  ;  Sam.  Bough, 
A.R.S.A. ;  John  M'Whirteb;  E.  Herdman,  R.S.A.  ;  Clark 
Stanton,  A.R.S.A.  ;  J.  Lawson,  and  other  eminent  Artists. 

'This  is  really  a  collection  of  art  and  literary  gems — the  prettiest  book,  take  it 
all  in  all,  that  we  have  seen  this  &Ba.&on.'— Illustrated  Times. 


Uniform  with  the  above,  price  7s.  6d., 

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A  Series  of  Forty  beautiful  Illustrations  on  Wood,  with  descriptive 
selections  from  the  Writings  of  the  Poets,  elegantly  pi-inted  within 
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appropriately  illustrated  with  upwards  of  one  hundred  original 
engravings,  drawn  expressly  for  this  work.  Beautifully  printed 
within  red  lines,  on  superfine  paper. 

'For  really  luxurious  hooks,  Nimmo's  "  Pen  and  Pencil  Pictures  from  the  Poets" 
and  "  Gems  of  Literature  "  may  be  well  recommended.  They  are  luxurious  in  the 
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AND    HIS    THREE    WISHES. 

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not  been  unknown  for  some  time  that  Jlr.  David  Smith,  brother  of  tlie  poet 
Alexander,  Is  likewise  in  possession  of  the  literary  faculty,  and  even  of  the  gift  of 
song ;  but  this  beautiful  little  book,  which  will  be  the  delight  of  all  boys  and  the 
admiration  of  many  men,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  is  the  tirst  substantive  work 
from  his  pen.  Meant  as  it  is  for  a  boy's  book,  it  presents  a  terseness  in  the 
style,  a  poetic  tint  in  the  language  throughout,  and  a  vividness  in  the  descriptive 
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Editor  will  sufficiently  testify,  are  admirable.  They  form  handsome 
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John  Johnstone.  An  entirely  new  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged, 
by  John  Longmuir,  A.M.,  LL.D.,  formerly  Lecturer  in  King's  Col- 
lege and  University,  Aberdeen. 


NIMMO'S 

LIBRARY  EDITION  OF  STANDARD  WORKS, 


WELL,  ADAPTED  FOR 


Irises  in  Epper  Classes  nuin  '^iq^  Schools. 


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SPEARE, based  on  the  Text 
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Eeed ;  with  a  Biographical 
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ENTEETAINMENTS. 
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THE  COMPLETE  POETI- 
CAL AND  PROSE  WORKS 
OP  ROBERT  BURNS. 
With  Life  and  Variorum 
Notes. 

THE      MISOELLAKEOUS 

WORKS  OF  OLIVER 
GOLDSMITH. 

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lated by  WiiisTON. 


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whose  sound  judgment  is  accompanied  by  a  graceful  liveliness  of  imagination. 
We  venture  to  predict  that  this  book  will  soon  become,  and  long  remain,  the 
standard  Histoiy  of  Scotland.'— Quarter?!^  Review. 

'An  accui-ate,  well-digested,  well- written  History;  evincing  deliberation,  re- 
search, judgment,  and  fidelity.' — Scotsman. 

'  The  tenor  of  the  work  in  general  reflects  the  highest  honour  on  Mr.  Tytler's 
talents  and  industry.' — -Sir  Walter  Scott. 

'The  want  of  a  complete  History  of  Scotland  has  been  long  felt;  and  from  the 
specimen  which'  the  volume  before  us  gives  of  the  author's  talents  and  capacity 
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spirit  The  events  are  themselves  of  the  most  romantic  kind,  and  are  detailed  in 
a  very  picturesque  and  forcible  style.' — Times. 

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Longfellow's  Poetical  "Works. 

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Wordsworth's  Poetical  Works. 

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the  Works  of  the  Poets. 

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6 


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7 


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WISDOM,  WIT,  AND  ALLEGORY. 

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Lays  of  Life  and  Laboihi. 


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Across  the  River :  Twelve  Views  of  Heaven. 

By  NoR>L\x  JIaclkod,  D.D.  ;  E.  W.  Hamilton,  D.D.  ;  Robert  S. 

Candlish,  D.D. ;  J.fVME3  Hamilton,  D.D. ;  etc.  etc.  etc. 
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Emblems    of    Jesus  ;    or,    Illustrations    of 

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Life  Thoughts  of  Eminent  Christians. 
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relief  in  having  this  simple  companion  to  share  her  tears.' — Stirling  Journal. 

The  Orphan;    or,  Words  of  Comfort  for  the 

Fatherless  and  Motherless. 

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14 


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I-  ' 

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'  Tlie  author  of  the  volume  before  ns  endeavours  to  describe  what  heaven  is,  as 
shown  by  the  light  of  reason  and  Scripture;  and  we  promise  the  reader  many 
channing  pictures  of  heavenly  bliss,  founded  upon, undeniable  authority,  and 
described  witli  tlie  pen  of  a  dramatist,  wliicli  cannot  fail  to  elevate  the  soul  as 

well  as  to  delight  the  imagination Part  Second  proves,  in  a  manner  as 

beaiitiful  as  it  is  convincing,  tlie  doctkine  of  the  kecognition  of  friends  in 
HEAVEN, — a  subject  of  whicli  the  author  makes  much,  introducing  many  touching 
scenes  of  Scripture  celebrities  meeting  in  lieaven  and  discoursing  of  tlieir  experi- 
ence on  earth.    Part  Third  demonstrates  the  interest  which  those  in  heaven 

FEEL  IN  earth,  AND  PROVES,  WITH  REMARKABLE  CLEARNESS,  THAT  SUCH  AN  INTE- 
REST EXISTS  NOT  ONLY  WITH  THE  ALMIGHTV   AND   AMONG   THE   ANGELS,    BDT   ALSO 

AMONG  THE  SPIRITS  OP  DEPARTED  FRIENDS.  We  Unhesitatingly  give  our  opinion 
that  this  volume  is  one  of  the  most  delightful  productions  of  a  religious  cliaracter 
which  has  appeared  for  some  time ;  and  we  would  desire  to  see  it  pass  into  exten- 
sive circulation.' — Glasgow  Herald. 


A  Cheap  Edition  of 

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'The  author,  in  his  or  her  former  work,  "Heaven  our  Home,"  portrayed  a 

SOCIAL  HEAVEN,  WHERE  SCATTERED  FAMILIES  MEET  AT  LAST  IN  LOVING  INTER- 
COURSE AND  IN  POSSESSION  OF  PERFECT  PvECOGNiTiON,  to  Spend  a  nevei-ending 
eternity  of  peace  and  love.  In  the  present  work  the  individual  state  of  the  chil- 
dren of  God  is  attempted  to  be  unfolded,  and  more  especially  the  state  of  proba- 
tion which  is  set  apart  for  them  on  eartli  to  fit  and  prepare  erring  mortals  for  the 
society  of  the  saints The  work,  as  a  whole,  displays  an  originality  of  con- 
ception, a  flow  of  language,  and  a  closeness  of  reasoning  rarely  found  in  religious 
publications The  author  combats  the  pleasing  and  generally  accepted  belief, 

that  DEATH  WILL  EFFECT   AN   ENTIRE   CHANGE    ON    THE   SPIRITUAL   CONDITION   OF 

otTE  SOULS,  and  that  all  who  enter  into  bliss  will  be  placed  on  a  common  level.' — 
Glasgow  Herald. 


A  Cheap  Edition  of 

MEET     FOR, HEAVEN, 

In  crown  Svo,  cloth  limp,  price  Is.  6d.,  is  also  published. 

15 


Works  by  the  Author  of '  Heaven  our  Home ' — co?itimied. 


III. 

TWENTY-FIRST  THOUSAND. 
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LIFE      IN      HEAVEN. 

There,  Faith  is  changed  into  Sight,  and  Hope  is  passed  into 

BLISSFUL  FkUITION. 

'  This  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  remarkable  works  which  have  been  issued 
from  the  press  during  the  present  generation ;  and  we  have  no  doubt  it  will  prove 
as  acceptable  to  the  public  as  the  two  attractive  volumes  to  which  it  forms  an 
appropriate  and  beautiful  sequel.' — Cheltenham  Journal. 

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our  future  state,  and  to  put  before  its  readera  such  an  idea  of  the  reality  of  our 
existence  there,  as  may  tend  to  make  a  future  world  more  desirable  and  more 
sought  for  than  it  is  at  present.' — Cambridge  University  Chronicle. 

'  This,  like  its  companion  works,  "  Heaven  our  Home,"  and  "  Meet  for  Heaven," 
needs  no  adventitious  circumstances,  no  prestige  of  literary  renown,  to  recommend 
it  to  the  consideration  of  the  reading  public,  and,  like  its  predecessors,  ■«'ill  no 
doubt  circulate  by  tens  of  thousands  throughout  the  land.' — Glasgow  Examiner. 


A  Cheap  Edition  of 

LIFE     IN     HEAVEN, 

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IV. 

Crown  8vo,  cloth  antique,  price  3s.  6d., 

TABOR'S     TEACHINGS; 

Ok,  The  Veil  Lifted. 

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Intercourse  with  his  people.  These  are  developed  with  great  power  of  thought, 
and  great  beauty  of  language.  The  book  is  sure  to  meet  with  as  flattering  a 
reception  as  the  author's  former  woi'ks.' — The  Newsman. 

'  The  work  opens  up  to  view  a  heaven  to  be  prized,  and  a  home  to  be  sought  for, 
and  presents  it  in  a  cheerful  and  attractive  aspect.  The  beauty  and  elegance  of 
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former  productions.'— ^/on<ro«e  Standard. 

'  A  careful  reading  of  this  volume  will  ^dd  immensely  to  the  interest  of  the  New  , 
Testament  naiTative  of  the  Transfiguration,  and  so  far  will  gi-eatly  promote  our 
personal  interest  in  the  will  of  God  as  revealed  in  his  word.' — Weskyan  Times. 


A  Cheap  Edition  of 

TABOR'S     TEACHINGS, 

In  crown  8vo,  cloth  limp,  price  Is.  6d.,  is  also  published. 
16 


Uniform  with  '  Heaven  our  Home.' 

Third  Edition,  just  ready,  price  3s.  6d., 

THE    SPIRIT    DISEMBODIED. 

WEEN  WE  DIE   WE  DO  NOT  FALL  ASLEEP: 
WE  ONLY  CHANGE  OUR  PLACE. 

BY    HERBEET   BROUGHTON. 

OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRESS. 

'  This  book  will  be  read  by  thousands.  It  treats  on  all-important 
subjects  in  a  simple  and  attractive  style.' — Chronicle. 

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'  The  last  chapter  supplies  us  with  a  few  more  instances  of  the  deaths 
'of  pious  men,  in  proof  that  angels  do  attend  the  deathbed  scenes  of  the 
saints  of  God,  to  carry  the  disembodied  spirit  to  heaven.' — Pall  Mall 
Gazette. 

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the  soul  is  an  immortal  part  of  our  being,  but  that  there  are  mysterious 
links  connecting  us  with  those  we  love  on  earth,  and  that  when  "clothed 
upon  "  with  immortality,  we  shall  "recognise  each  other  and  be  together 
in  eternity." ' — Exeter  Post. 

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narratives  of  the  triumphant  deathbeds,  and  the  celestial  visions  of 
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Courier. 

17 


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A  Handy  Outline  of  Geology.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  Third 
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'  Text-Books  of  Geology  and  Physical  Geography,'  etc. 

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have  neither  time  nor  room  for  the  study  of  large  treatises.' — The  Museum. 

II. 

POULTRY  AS  A  MEAT  SUPPLY: 

Being  Hints  to  Henwives  how  to  Rear  and  Manage  Poultry  Economi- 
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the  rural  population  generally.' — The  Globe. 

III. 

HOW    TO    BECOME    A    SUCCESSFUL 
ENGINEER: 

Being  Hints  to  Youths  intending  to  adopt  the  Profession.  Third 
Edition.    By  Ber:<akd  Stuart,  Engineer. 

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IV. 

RATIONAL     COOKERY: 

Cookery  made  Practical  and  Economical,  in  connection  with  the 
Chemistry  of  Food.     Fifth  Edition.    By  Hartelaw  Reid. 

'A  thousand  times  more  useful  as  a  marriage-gift  than  the  usual  gewgaw 
presents,  would  be  this  very  simple  manual  for  tlie  daily  guidance  of  the  youthful 
bride  in  one  other  most  important  domestic  duties.' — Glasgow  Citizen. 
18 


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HANDY  BOOKS  OP  USEFUL  OOWLEDGE— 

Continued. 


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In  a  Series  of  Biographies,  from  the  Beginning  of  the  Christian  Era 
till  the  Present  Time.    Second  Edition.    By  David  Pktde,  M.A. 

'  It  is  published  with  a  view  to  the  teaching  of  the  history  of  Europe  since  the 
Christian  era  by  tlie  biographic  method,  recommended  by  Mr.  Carlyle  as  the  only 
proper  method  of  teaching  history.  Tlie  style  of  the  book  is  clear,  elegant,  and 
terse.  The  biographies  are  well,  and,  for  the  most  part,  graphically  told.' — The 
iScotsman. 

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DOMESTIC    MEDICINE: 

Plain  and  Brief  Directions  for  the  Treatment  requisite  before  Advice 
can  be  obtained.  Second  Edition.  By  Offley  Bohun  Shoke, 
Doctor  of  Medicine  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  etc.  etc.  etc. 

'This  is  one  of  the  medicine  books  that  ought  to  be  published.  It  does  not 
recommend  any  particular  system,  and  it  is  not  in  any  sense  an  adrertisement  for 
fees.  It  is  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Shore,  an  eminent  pliysician,  and  it  is  dedicated, 
by  permission,  to  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson,  Bart.,  one  of  the  first  physicians  of  the 
age.  We  can  recommend  it  to  the  attention  of  heads  of  families  and  to  travellers.' 
—The  Standard. 

VII. 

DOMESTIC     MANAGEMENT: 

Hints  on  the  Training  and  Treatment  of  Children  and  Servants. 
By  Mks.  Charles  Doig. 

'  A  more  valuable  little  treatise  we  have  rarely  seen.' — Illustrated  Times. 
'This  is  an  excellent  book  of  its  kind,  a  handbook  to  family  life  which  will  do 
much  towards  promoting  comfort  and  happiness.' — The  Spectator. 

VIII. 

FREE-HAND     DRAWING: 

A  Guide  to  Ornamental,  Figure,  and  Landscape  Drawing.      By  an 
Art  Student,   Author  of    '  Ornamental  and  Figure  Drawing.' 
Profusely  Illustrated. 
'This  is  an  excellent  and  thoroughly  practical  guide  to  ornamental,  figure,  and 

landscape  drawing.   Beginners  could  not  make  a  better  start  than  with  this  capital 

little  book.' — Morning  Star. 

IX. 

THE  METALS  USED  IN  CONSTRUCTION : 

Iron,  Steel,  Bessemer  Metal,  etc.  etc.  By  Francis  Herbert  Joynson. 
Illustrated. 

OTHER  VOLUMES  IN  PREPARATION. 

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